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SHAKESPEARE'S 



HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D. 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON . NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



USRARYofOONoRESSj 

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JUL 124 I90tf 
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Shakcspcariana - 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880. by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
26.4 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



INTRODUCTION. 



History of the Play. 

JOHNSON rightly observes that the First and Second 
Parts of King Henry the Fourth are substantially one 
drama, the whole being arranged as two only because too 
long to be one. For this cause it seems best to regard 
them as one in what follows, and so dispose of them both 
together. The writing of them must be placed at least as 
early as 1597, when the author was thirty-three years old. 
The First Part was registered at the Stationers' for publi- 
cation in February, 1598, and was published in the course of 
that year. There were also four other quarto issues of the 
play before the folio edition of 1623. The Second Part was 
first published in 1600, and there is not known to have 
been any other edition of it till it reappeared along with the 
First Part in the folio. It is pretty certain, however, for 
reasons to be stated presently, that the Second Part was 
written before the entry of the First Part at the Stationers' 
in 1598. 

It is beyond question that the original name of Sir John 
Falstaff was Sir John Oldcastle ; and a curious relic of 
that naming survives in Act i. scene 2, where the Prince 
calls Falstaff " my old lad of the castle." And we have 
several other strong proofs of the fact ; as in the Epilogue 
to the Second Part : " For any thing I know, Falstaff shall 
die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard 



4 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

opinions ; for Old castle died a martyr, and this is not the 
man." Also, in Amends for Ladies, a play by Nathaniel 
Field, printed in 1618 : " Did you never see the play where 
the fat Knight, hight Oldcastle, did tell you truly what 
this honour was?" which clearly alludes to Falstaff's so- 
liloquy about honour in the First Part, Act v. scene 1. 
Yet the change of name must have been made before the 
play was entered in the Stationers' books, as that entry 
mentions "the conceited mirth of Sir John Falstaff." 
And we have one small but pretty decisive mark inferring 
the Second Part to have been written before that change 
was made : in the quarto edition of this Part, Act i. scene 2, 
one of Falstaff's speeches has the prefix Old; the change 
in that instance being probably left unmarked in the 
printer's copy. All which shows that both Parts were 
originally written long enough before February, 1598, for 
the author to see cause for changing the name. 

" Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham," was much 
distinguished as a Wicklifiite martyr, ancL his name was 
held in high reverence by the Protestants in Shakespeare's 
time. And the purpose of the change in question probably 
was to rescue his memory from the profanations of the 
stage. Thus much seems hinted in the forcited passage 
from the Epilogue, and is further approved by what Fuller 
says in his Church History : " Stage-poets have themselves 
been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory 
of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon com- 
panion, jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is, 
Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the memory of Sir John OkU 
castle, and is substituted buffoon in his place." 

Another motive for the change may have been the bettei 
to distinguish Shakespeare's play from The Famous Victo- 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

ries of Henry the Fifth ; a play which had been on the 
stage some years, and wherein Sir John Oldcastle was 
among the names of the Dramatis Personce, as were also 
Ned and Gadshill. There is no telling with any certainty 
when or by whom The Famous Victories was written. It 
is known to have been on the boards as early as 1588, 
because one of the parts was acted by Tarleton, the cele- 
brated comedian, who died that year. And Nash, in his 
Pierce Penniless, 1592, thus alludes to it: "What a glo- 
rious thing it is to have Henry the Fifth represented on 
the stage, leading the French King prisoner, and forcing 
him and the Dauphin to swear fealty," It was also entered 
at the Stationers' in 1594; and a play called Harry the 
Fifth, probably the same, was performed in 1595 ; and not 
less than three editions of it were printed. All which tells 
strongly for its success and popularity. The action of the 
play extends over the whole time occupied by Shakespeare's 
King Henry the Fourth and King Henry the Fifth. The 
Poet can hardly be said to have built upon it or borrowed 
from it at all, any further than taking the above-mentioned 
names. The play is indeed a most wretched and worthless 
performance ; being altogether a mass of stupid vulgarity ; 
at once vapid and vile ; without the least touch of wit in 
the comic parts, or of poetry in the tragic ; the verse being 
such only to the eye ; Sir John Oldcastle being a dull, low- 
minded profligate, uninformed with the slightest felicity of 
thought or humour ; the Prince, an irredeemable compound 
of ruffian, blackguard, and hypocrite ; and their compan- 
ions, the fitting seconds of such principals : so that to have 
drawn upon it for any portion or element of Shakespeare's 
King Henry the Fourth were much the same as "extract- 
ing sunbeams from cucumbers." 



6 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Abstract of the Historic Matter. 

In these plays, as in others of the same class, the Poet's 
authority was Holinshed, whose Chronicles, first published 
in 1577, was then the favourite book in English history. 
And the plays, notwithstanding their wealth of ideal matter, 
are rightly called historical, because the history everywhere 
guides, and in a good measure forms, the plot, whereas 
Macbeth, for instance, though having much of historical 
matter, is rightly called a tragedy, as the history merely 
subserves the plot. 

King Henry the Fourth, surnamed Bolingbroke from the 
place of his birth, came to the throne in 1399, having first 
deposed his cousin, Richard the Second, whose death he 
was generally thought to have procured shortly after. The 
chief agents in this usurpation were the Percys, known in 
history as Northumberland, Worcester, and Hotspur, three 
haughty and turbulent noblemen, who afterwards troubled 
Henry to keep the crown as much as they had helped him 
in getting it. 

The lineal heir to the crown next after Richard was 
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, a lad then about seven 
years old, whom the King held in a sort of honourable 
custody. Early in his reign, one of the King's leading 
partisans in Wales went to insulting and oppressing Owen 
Glendower, a chief of that country, who had been trained 
up in the English Court. Glendower petitioned for redress, 
and was insultingly denied ; whereupon he took the work 
of redress into his own hands. Sir Edmund Mortimer, 
uncle to the young Earl of March, and brother to Hotspur's 
wife, was sent against him ; but his forces were utterly 
broken, and himself captured and held in close confinement 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

by Glendower, where the King suffered him to lie unran- 
somed, alleging that he had treacherously allowed himself 
to be taken. Shakespeare, however, following Holinshed, 
makes the young Earl, who was then detained at Windsor to 
have been Glendower's prisoner. 

After the captivity of Mortimer the King led three armies 
in succession against Glendower, and was as often baffled by 
the valour or the policy of the Welshman. At length the 
elements made war on the King; his forces were storm- 
stricken, blown to pieces by tempests ; which bred a general 
belief that Glendower could "command the Devil," and 
"call spirits from the vasty deep." The King finally gave 
up and withdrew ; but still consoled himself that he yielded 
not to the arms, but to the magic arts of his antagonist. 

In the beginning of his reign the King led an army into 
Scotland, and summoned the Scottish King to appear before 
him and do homage for his crown ; but, finding that the 
Scots would neither submit nor fight, and being pressed by 
famine, he gave over the undertaking and retired. Some 
while after, Earl Douglas, at the head of ten thousand men, 
burst into England, and advanced as far as Newcastle, 
spreading terror and havoc around him. On their return 
they were met by the Percys at Homildon where, after a 
fierce and bloody battle, the Scots were totally routed ; 
Douglas himself being captured, as were also many other 
Scottish noblemen, and among them the Earl of Fife, a 
prince of the blood royal. The most distinguished of the 
English leaders in this affair was Henry Percy, surnamed 
Hotspur; a man of the most restless, daring, fiery, and 
impetuous spirit, who first armed at the age of twelve 
years, after which time, it is said, his spur was never cold. 

Of the other events suffice it to say that they are much 



8 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

the same in history as in the drama ; while the Poet's selec- 
tion and ordering of them yield no special cause for remark. 
One or two points, however, it may be well to notice as 
throwing some light on certain allusions in the play. 

In the Spring of 1405, Prince Henry, then in his nine- 
teenth year, was at the head of an army in Wales, where 
Glendower had hitherto carried all before him. By his 
activity, prudence, and perseverance, the young hero gradu- 
ally broke the Welshman down, and at length reduced the 
whole country into subjection. He continued in this ser- 
vice most of the time for four years ; his valour and conduct 
awakening the most favourable expectations, which however 
were not a little dashed by his rampant hilarity during the 
intervals of labour in the field. His father was much grieved 
at these irregularities ; and his grief was heightened by some 
loose and unfilial words that were reported to him as having 
fallen from the Prince in hours of merriment. Hearing of 
this, the Prince went to expostulate with his father ; yet even 
then he enacted a strange freak of oddity, arraying himself 
in a gown of blue satin wrought full of eyelet-holes, and at 
each eyelet the needle still hanging by the silk; probably 
meaning to intimate thereby, that if his behaviour, his moral 
garb, were full of rents, it was not too late to sew them up, 
and the means were at hand for doing so. Being admitted 
to an interview, he fell on his knees and, presenting a dag- 
ger, begged the King to take his life, since he had with- 
drawn his favour. His father, much moved, threw away 
the dagger, and, kissing him, owned with tears that he had 
indeed held him in suspicion, though, as he now saw, with- 
out just cause ; and promised that no misreports should 
thenceforth shake his confidence in him. 

At another time, one of his unruly companions being con- 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

victed of felony, and sentenced to prison by the Chief Jus- 
tice, the Prince undertook to rescue him, and even went so 
far as to assault the Judge ; who forthwith ordered him to 
prison also, and he had the good sense to submit. Upon 
being told this incident, the King exclaimed, "Happy the 
King that has a judge so firm in his duty, and a son so 
obedient to the law ! " 

Perhaps I should add, that the battle of Homildon was 
fought September 14, 1402 ; which marks the beginning of 
the play. The battle of Shrewsbury, which closes the First 
Part, took place July 21, 1403; Prince Henry being then 
only sixteen years old. The King died March 19, 14 13 ; so 
that the two plays cover a period of about ten years and a 
half. 

Character of the King. 

If these two plays are substantially one, it is the character 
of Prince Henry that makes them so ; that is, they have 
their unity in hint; and the common argument of them lies 
in the change alleged to have taken place in him on coming 
to the throne. Why was Henry of Monmouth so loose and 
wild a reveller in his youth, and yet such a proficient in noble 
and virtuous discipline in his manhood ? what causes, internal 
and external, determined him to the one ; what impulses 
from within, what influences from without, transformed him 
into the other? Viewed in the light of this principle, the 
entire work, with its broad, rich variety of incident and char- 
acter, and its alternations of wit and poetry, will be seen, I 
think, to proceed in a spirit of wise insight and design. 

Accordingly, in the first scene of the play, this matter is 
put forth as uppermost in the King's thoughts. I refer to 
what passes between him and Westmoreland touching the 



IO KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

victory at Homildon ; where the Earl declares " it is a con- 
quest for a prince to boast of," and the King replies, 

Yea, there thou makest me sad, and makest me sin, 

In envy that my Lord Northumberland 

Should be the father to so blest a son ; 

Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, 

See riot and dishonour stain the brow 

Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved 

That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged 

In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, 

And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet ! 

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine. 

One reason of Prince Henry's early irregularities seems to 
have grown from the character of his father. All accounts 
agree in representing Bolingbroke as a man of great reach 
and sagacity ; a politician of inscrutable craft, full of insinua- 
tion, brave in the field, skilful alike at penetrating others* 
designs and at concealing his own; unscrupulous alike in 
smiling men into his service and in crunching them up 
after he had used them. All which is fully borne out in 
that, though his reign was little else than a series of rebel- 
lions and commotions proceeding in part from the injustice 
whereby he reached the crown and the bad title whereby 
he held it, yet he always got the better of them, and even 
turned them to his advantage. Where he could not win 
the heart, cutting off the head, and ever plucking fresh 
security out of the dangers that beset him ; his last years, 
however, were much embittered, and his death probably 
hastened, by the anxieties growing out of his position, and 
the remorses consequent upon his crimes. 

But, while such is the character generally ascribed to him, 
no historian has come near Shakespeare in the painting of 
it. Much of his best transpiration is given in the preceding 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

play of Richard the Second, where he is the controlling 
spirit. For, though Richard is the more prominent charac- 
ter in that play, this is not as the mover of things, but as 
the receiver of movements caused by another ; the effects 
lighting on him, while the worker of them is comparatively 
unseen. For one of Bolingbroke's main peculiarities is, 
that he looks solely to results ; and, like a true artist, the 
better to secure these he keeps his designs and processes in 
the dark ; his power thus operating so secretly, that in what- 
ever he does the thing seems to have done itself to his 
hand. How intense his enthusiasm, yet how perfect his 
coolness and composure ! Then too how pregnant and 
forcible, always, yet how calm and gentle, and at times how 
terrible, his speech ! how easily and unconcernedly the 
words drop from him, yet how pat and home they are to 
the persons for whom and the occasions whereon they are 
spoken ! To all which add a flaming thirst of power, a 
most aspiring and mounting ambition, with an equal mix- 
ture of humility, boldness, and craft, and the result explains 
much of the fortune that attends him through all the plays 
in which he figures. For the Poet keeps him the same man 
throuilkout. 

it, taking the whole delineation together, we have, at 

jrth and done to the life, the portrait of a man in act 

bold, decisive, in thought sly, subtle, far-reaching ; 

:ter hard and cold indeed to the feelings, but written 

with success ; which has no impulsive gushes or 

it all is study, forecast, and calm suiting of means 

^pointed ends. And this perfect self-command is in 

frt the secret of his strange power over others, mak- 

almost as pliant to his purposes as are the cords 

and m^|cles of his own body; so that, as the event proves, 




12 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

he grows great by their feeding, till he can compass food 
enough without their help, and, if they go to hindering him, 
can eat them up. For so it turned out with the Percys ; 
strong sinews indeed with him for a head; while, against 
him, their very strength served but to work their own over- 
throw. 

Some points of this description are well illustrated in 
what Hotspur says of him just before the battle of Shrews- 
bury, in the speech beginning, 

The King is kind ; and well we know the King 
Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. 

Hotspur, to be sure, exaggerates a good deal there, as he 
does everywhere, still his charges have a considerable basis 
of truth. - As further matter to the point, observe the ac- 
count which the King gives of himself when remonstrat- 
ing with the Prince against his idle courses ; which is not 
less admirable for truth of history than for skill of pencil. 
Equally fine, also, is the account of his predecessor immedi- 
ately following that of himself; where we see that he has 
the same sharp insight of men as of means, and has made 
Richard's follies and vices his tutors ; from his miscarriages 
learning how to supplant him, and perhaps encouraging his 
errors, that he might make a ladder of them, to mount up 
and overtop him. The whole scene indeed is pregnantly 
characteristic both of the King and the Prince. And how 
the King's penetrating and remorseless sagacity is flashed 
forth in Hotspur's outbursts of rage at his demanding all the 
prisoners taken at Homildon S wherein that roll of living fire 
is indeed snappish enough, but then he snaps out much 
truth. 

But, though policy was the leading trait in this able man, 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

nevertheless it was not so prominent but that other and bet- 
ter traits were strongly visible. And even in his policy there 
was much of the breadth and largeness which distinguish the 
statesman from the politician. Besides, he was a man of 
prodigious spirit and courage, had a real eye to the interests 
of his country as well as of his family, and in his wars he was 
humane much beyond the custom of his time. And in the 
last scene of the Poet's delineation of him, where he says to 
the Prince, 

Come hither, Harry ; sit thou by my bed, 
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel 
That ever I shall breathe ; 

though we have indeed his subtle policy working out like a 
ruling passion strong in death, still its workings are suffused 
with gushes of right feeling, enough to show that he was not 
all politician ; that beneath his close-knit prudence there was 
a soul of moral sense, a kernel of religion. Nor must I omit 
how the Poet, following the leadings both of nature and his- 
tory, makes him to be plagued by foes springing up in his 
own bosom in proportion as he ceases to be worried by exter- 
nal enemies • the crown beginning to scald his brows as soon 
as he has crushed those who would pluck it from him. 

The Hotspur of the North. 

How different is the atmosphere which waits upon the 
group of rebel war-chiefs, whereof Hotspur is the soul, and 
where chivalry reigns as supremely as wit and humour do in 
the haunts of Falstaff ! It is difficult to speak of Hotspur 
satisfactorily ; not indeed but that the lines of his character 
are bold and emphatic enough, but rather because they are 
so much so. For his frame is greatly disproportioned, which 



14 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

causes him to seem larger than he is ; and one of his excesses 
manifests itself in a wiry, red-hot speech, which burns such 
an impression of him into the mind as to make any commen- 
tary seem prosaic and dull. There is no mistaking him : no 
character in Shakespeare stands more apart in plenitude of 
peculiarity ; and stupidity itself cannot so disfeature him with 
criticism, but that he will be recognized by any one who has 
ever been with him. He is as much a monarch in his sphere 
as the King and Falstaff are in theirs ; only they rule more 
by power, he by stress : there is something in them that takes 
away the will and spirit of resistance ; he makes every thing 
bend to his arrogant, domineering, capricious temper. Who 
that has been with him in the scenes at the Palace and at 
Bangor can ever forget his bounding, sarcastic, overbearing 
spirit ? How he hits all about him, and makes the feathers fly 
wherever he hits ! It seems as if his tongue could go through 
the world, and strew the road behind it with splinters. And 
how steeped his speech everywhere is in the poetry of the 
sword ! In what compact and sinewy platoons and squad- 
rons the words march out of his mouth in bristling rank and 
file ! as if from his birth he had been cradled on the iron 
breast of war. How doubly- charged he is, in short, with the 
electricity of chivalry ! insomuch that you can touch him 
nowhere but he gives you a shock. 

In those two scenes, what with Hotspur, and what with 
Glendower, the poetry is as unrivalled in its kind as the wit 
and humour in the best scenes at Eastcheap. What a dress- 
ing Hotspur gives the silken courtier who came to demand 
the prisoners ! Still better, however, is the dialogue that 
presently follows in the same scene ; where Hotspur seems 
to be under a spell, a fascination of rage and scorn : nothing 
can check him, he cannot check himself; because, besides 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

the boundings . of a most turbulent and impetuous nature, he 
has always had his own way, having from his boyhood held 
the post of a feudal war- chief. Irascible, headstrong, impa- 
tient, every effort to arrest or divert him only produces a new 
impatience. Whatever thought strikes him, it forthwith kin- 
dles into an overmastering passion that bears down all before 
it. We see that he has a rough and passionate soul, great 
strength and elevation of mind, with little gentleness and 
less delicacy, and a " force of will that rises into poetry by 
its own chafings." While "the passion of talk" is upon 
him, he fairly drifts and surges before it till exhausted, and 
then there supervenes an equal " passion of action." " Speak- 
ing thick " is noted as one of his peculiarities ; and it is not 
clear whether the Poet took this from some tradition respect- 
ing him, or considered it a natural result of his prodigious 
rush and press of thought. 

Another striking trait in Hotspur, resulting perhaps, in 
part, from his having so much passion in his head, is the 
singular absence of mind so well described by Prince Henry : 
"I am not of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North ; he 
that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, 
washes his hands, and says to his wife, Fie upon this quiet 
life / I want work, O, my sweet Harry ! says she, how 
many hast thou killed to-day? Give my roan horse a 
drench, says he ; and answers, an hour after, Some fourteen ; 
a trifle, a trifle /" So again in the scene of Hotspur and 
his wife at Warkworth. She winds up her strain of tender 
womanly remonstrance by saying, 

Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, 
And I must know it, else he loves me not. 

Before answering her, he calls in a servant, makes several 



1 6 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

inquiries about his horse, and orders him to be brought into 
the park, hears her reproof, and exchanges divers questions 
with her ; then replies, " Love ! I love thee not ; I care not 
for thee, Kate " ; and presently heals up the wound : 

Come, wilt thou see me ride ? 
And when I am o' horseback I will swear 
I love thee infinitely. 

Here it is plain that his absence grows from a certain skit- 
tishness of mind : he has not the control of his thinking ; 
the issues of his brain being so conceived in fire as to pre- 
clude steadiness of attention and the pauses of thought. 

The qualities I have noted in Hotspur unfit him, in a 
great measure, for a military leader in regular warfare, his 
nature being too impulsive and heady for the counterpoise 
of so weighty an undertaking. Too impatient and eager 
for the contest to concert operations ; abundantly able to 
fight battles, but not to scheme them ; he is qualified to 
succeed only in the hurly-burly of border warfare, where 
success comes more by fury of onset than by wisdom of 
plan. All which is finely apparent just before the battle 
of Shrewsbury, where, if not perversely wrong-headed, he 
is so headstrong, peremptory, and confident even to rash- 
ness, as to be quite impracticable. We see, and his fellow- 
chieftains see, that there is no coming to a temper with 
him ; he being sure to run a quarrel with any one who 
stands out against his proposals. Yet he is never more 
truly the noble Hotspur than on this occasion, when, amidst 
the falling-off of friends, the backwardness of allies, and 
the thickening of dangers, his ardent and brave spirit turns 
his very disadvantages into grounds of confidence. 

His untamed boisterousness of tongue has one of its best 



INTRODUCTION. I J 

eruptions in the dispute with Glendower at Bangor, where 
his wit and his impudence come in for about equal shares 
of our admiration. He finally stops the mouth of his an- 
tagonist, or heads him off upon another subject, as he does 
again shortly after, in a dispute about the partitioning of 
the realm ; and he does it not so much by force of reason 
as of will and speech. His contempt of poetry is highly 
characteristic ; though it is observable that he has spoken 
more poetry than any one else in the play. But poetry is 
altogether an impulse with him, not a purpose, as it is with 
Glendower; and he loses all thought of himself and his 
speech, in the intensity of passion with which he contem- 
plates the object or occasion that moves him. His celebrated 
description of the fight between Glendower and Mortimer 
has been censured as offending good taste by its extrava- 
gance. It would not be in good taste indeed to put such 
a strain into the mouth of a contemplative sage, like Pros- 
pero ; but in Hotspur its very extravagance is in good taste, 
because hugely characteristic. 

Hotspwr is a general favourite : whether from something 
in himself or from the King's treatment of him, he has our 
good-will from the start ; nor is it without some reluctance 
that we set the Prince above him in our regard. Which 
may be owing in part to the interest we take, and justly, in 
his wife ; who, timid, solicitous, affectionate, and playful, is 
a woman of the true Shakespearian stamp. How delectable 
is the harmony felt between her prying, inquisitive gentle- 
ness and his rough, stormy courage ! for in her gentleness 
there is much strength, and his bravery is not without gen- 
tleness. The scene at Warkworth, where they first appear 
together, is a choice heart-refection : combining the beauty 
of movement and of repose, it comes into the surrounding 
elements like a patch of sunshine in a tempest. 



1 8 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Glendower the Magician. 

The best of historical matter for poetical and dramatic 
uses has seldom been turned to better account that way 
than in the portrait of Glendower. He is represented, with 
great art and equal truth, according to the superstitious be- 
lief of his time ; a belief in which himself doubtless shared : 
for, if the winds and tempests came when he wished them, 
it was natural for him to think, as others thought, that they 
came because he wished them. The popular ideas respect- 
ing him all belonged to the region of poetry ; and Shake- 
speare has given them with remarkable exactness, at the 
same time penetrating and filling them with his own spirit. 

Crediting the alleged portents of his nativity, Glendower 
might well conclude he was "not in the roll of common 
men " ; and so betake himself to the study and practice of 
those magic arts which were generally believed in then, 
and for which he was specially marked by his birth and all 
the courses of his life. And for the same cause he would 
naturally become somewhat egotistical, long-winded, and 
tedious ; presuming that what was interesting to him as re- 
lating to himself would be equally so to others for its own 
sake. So that we need not altogether discredit Hotspur's 
account of the time spent by him "in reckoning up the 
several devils' names that were his lacqueys." For, though 
Hotspur exaggerates here, as usual, yet we see that he has 
some excuse for his sauciness to Glendower, in that he has 
been dreadfully bored by him. And there is something 
ludicrous withal in the Welshman's being so wrapped up 
in himself as not to perceive the unfitness of talking thus to 
one so hare-brained and skittish. 

Glendower, however, is no ordinary enthusiast. A man 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

of wild and mysterious imaginations, yet he has a practical 
skill that makes them tell against the King ; his dealing in 
magic rendering him even more an object of fear than his 
valour and conduct. And his behaviour in the disputes 
with Hotspur approves him as much superior in the exter- 
nal qualities of a gentleman as he is more superstitious. 
Though no suspicion of any thing false or mean can attach 
to Hotspur, it is characteristic of him to indulge his haughty 
temper even to the thwarting of his purpose : he will hazard 
the blowing-up of the conspiracy rather than put a bridle on 
his impatience ; which the Welshman, with all his grandeur 
and earnestness of pretension, is too prudent to do. 

In the portrait of Glendower there is nothing unwarranted 
by history ; only Shakespeare has with marked propriety 
made the enthusiastic and poetical spirit of the man send 
him to the study of magic arts, as involving some natural 
aptitude or affinity for them. It may be interesting to know 
that he managed to spin out the contest among the wilds of 
Snowdon far into the next reign ; his very superstition per- 
haps lending him a strength of soul which no misfortune 
could break. I must not leave this strange being without 
remarking how sweetly his mind nestles in the bosom of 
poetry ; as appears in the passage where he acts as inter- 
preter between his daughter and her husband Mortimer. 

Minor Historical Characters. 

Among the minor historical characters of these plays 
there is much judicious discrimination. — Lord Bardolph is 
shrewd and sensible, of a firm practical understanding, and 
prudent forecast ; and none the less brave, that his cool 
judgment puts him upon looking carefully before he leaps. — 



20 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Vernon, with his well-poised discretion in war-council and 
his ungrudging admiration of the Prince, makes a happy foil 
to Hotspur, whose intemperate daring in conduct, and whose 
uneasiness at hearing Prince Henry's praises spoken, would 
something detract from his manhood, but that no suspicion 
of dishonour can fasten upon him. — The Archbishop, so 
forthright and strong-thoughted, bold, enterprising, and reso- 
lute in action, in speech grave, moral, and sententious, forms, 
all together, a noble portrait. — The Chief Justice, besides 
the noble figure he makes at the close, is, with capital dra- 
matic effect, brought forward several times in passages at 
arms with Falstaff ; where his good-natured wisdom, as dis- 
covered in his suppressed enjoyment of the fat old sinner's 
wit, just serves to sweeten without at all diluting the rever- 
ence that waits upon his office and character. — Northumber- 
land makes good his character as found in history. Evermore 
talking big and doing nothing ; full of verbal tempest and 
practical impotence ; and still ruining his friends, and at last 
himself, between "I would" and "I dare not"; he lives 
without our respect, and dies unpitied of us ; while his 
daughter-in-law's remembrance of her noble husband kin- 
dles a sharp resentment of his mean-spirited backwardness, 
and a hearty scorn of his blustering verbiage. 

Delineation of the Prince. 

Prince Henry was evidently a great favourite with the 
Poet. And he makes him equally so with his readers : pour- 
ing the full wealth of his genius upon him ; centring in him 
almost every manly grace and virtue, and presenting him as 
the mirror of Christian princes and loadstar of honour; a 
model at once cf a hero, a gentleman, and a sage. Wherein, 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

if not true to fact, he was true to the sentiment of the English 
people ; who probably cherished the memory of Henry the 
Fifth with more fondness than any other of their kings since 
the great Alfred. 

In the character of this man Shakespeare deviated from 
all the historical authorities known to have been accessible to 
him. Later researches, however, have justified his course 
herein, and thus given rise to the notion of his having drawn 
from some traditionary matter that had not yet found a place 
in written history. An extraordinary conversion was gener- 
ally thought to have fallen upon the Prince on coming to the 
crown ; insomuch that the old chroniclers could only account 
for the change by some miracle of grace or touch of super- 
natural benediction. Walsingham, a contemporary of the 
Prince, tells us that "as soon as he was invested with the 
ensigns of royalty he was suddenly changed into a new man, 
behaving with propriety, modesty, and gravity, and showing 
a desire to practise every kind of virtue." Caxton, also, says 
" he was a noble prince after he was king and crowned ; how- 
beit in his youth he had been wild, reckless, and spared 
nothing of his lusts nor desires." And various other old 
writers speak of him in the same strain. 

Prince Henry's conduct was indeed such as to lose him 
his seat in the Council, where he was replaced by his younger 
brother. Nevertheless it is certain that in mental and literary 
accomplishment he was in advance of his age ; being in fact 
one of the most finished gentlemen as well as greatest states- 
men and best men of his time. This seeming contradiction 
is all cleared up in the Poet's representation. It was for the 
old chroniclers to talk about his miraculous conversion : 
Shakespeare, in a far wiser spirit, and more religious too, 
brings his conduct within the ordinary rules of human char- 



22 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

acter ; representing whatever changes occur in him as pro- 
ceeding by the methods and proportions of nature. His early 
" addiction to courses vain " is accounted for by the character 
of Falstaff ; it being no impeachment of his intellectual or 
moral manhood, that he is drawn away by such a mighty 
magazine of fascinations. It is true, he is not altogether 
unhurt by his connection with Sir John : he is himself sensi- 
ble of this ; and the knowledge goes far to justify his final 
treatment of Falstaff. But, even in his wildest merry-mak- 
ings, we still taste in him a spice and flavour of manly recti- 
tude ; undesigned by him indeed, and the more assuring to 
us, that he evidently does not taste it himself. Shakespeare 
has nothing finer in its way than the gradual sundering of the 
ties that bind him to Falstaff, as the higher elements of his 
nature are called forth by emergent occasions ; and his turn- 
ing the dregs of unworthy companionship into food of noble 
thought and sentiment, extracting the sweetness of wisdom 
from the weeds of dangerous experiences. And his whole 
progress through this transformation, till " like a reappearing 
star " he emerges from the cloud of wildness wherein he had 
obscured his contemplation, is dappled with rare spots of 
beauty and promise. 

At the battle of Shrewsbury, as already stated, the Prince 
was sixteen years old. But, young as he was, he did the 
work of a man, never ceasing to fight where the battle was* 1 
hottest ; though so badly hurt in the face, that much effort^ 
was used to withdraw him from the field. So that in fact 
he was some twenty years younger than Hotspur. Such a 
difference of age would naturally foreclose any rivalry between 
them ; and one of the Poet's most judicious departures from 
literal truth is in approximating their ages, that such influences 
might have a chance to work. The King, too, displays his 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

'.sual astuteness in endeavouring to make the fame of Hot- 
spur tell upon the Prince ; though he still strikes wide of his 
real character, misderiving his conduct from a want of noble 
aptitudes, whereas it springs rather from a lack of such motives 
and occasions with which his better aptitudes can combine. 
But the King knows right well there is matter in him that 
will take fire when such sparks are struck into it. Accord- 
ingly, before they part, the Prince speaks such words, and in 
such a spirit, as to win his father's confidence ; the emulation 
kindled in him being no less noble than the object of it. 
Now it is that his many-sided, harmonious manhood begins 
fully to unfold itself. He has already discovered forces 
answering to all the attractions of FalstarT; and it is to be 
hoped that none will think the worse of him for preferring 
the climate of Eastcheap to that of the Court. Bnt the issue 
proves that he has far better forces, which sleep indeed dur- 
ing the absence, but spring forth at the coming, of their 
proper stimulants and opportunities. In the close-thronging 
dangers that beset his father's throne he has noble work to 
do ; in the thick-clustering honours of Hotspur, noble motives 
for doing it ; and the two together furnish those more con- 
genial attractions whereby he is gradually detached from a 
life of hunt-sport, and drawn up into the nobly-proportioned 
beauty with which both poetry and history have invested him. 
In this delineation are many passages over which the 
lover of poetry and manhood delights to linger; but it 
would be something out of keeping with my method to 
quote any of them. Nor can I dwell on the many gentle 
and heroic qualities that make up Prince Henry's well- 
rounded beautiful character. His tenderness of filial piety 
appears in his heart-bleeding grief at his father's sickness ; 
and his virtuous prudence no less appears in his avoiding 



24 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

all show of grief, as knowing that this, taken together wjro- 
his past levity, will be sure to draw on him the imputation 
of hypocrisy : his magnanimity appears in his pleading for 
the life of Douglas ; his ingenuousness, in the free and 
graceful apology to the King for his faults ; his good-nature 
and kindness of heart, in the apostrophe to Falstaff when he 
thinks him dead ; his chivalrous generosity, in the enthusi- 
asm with which he praises Hotspur; and his modesty, in 
the style of his challenge to him. And yet his nobilities of 
heart and soul come along in such easy, natural touches, 
they drop out so much as the spontaneous issues of his life, 
that we hardly notice them, thus engaging him our love 
and honour, we scarce know how or why. Great without 
effort, and good without thinking of it, he is indeed a noble 
ornament of the princely character. 

Dramatic Use of Falstaff. 

I have already observed how Prince Henry's deportment 
as King was in marked contrast with his course while Prince 
of Wales. I have also noted that the change in him on 
coming to the throne was so great and so sudden as to be 
popularly ascribed to a miracle of grace. Now Shakespeare 
knew that the day of miracles was passed. He also knew 
that without a miracle such a sudden revolution of character 
could not be. And so his idea clearly was, that the change 
was not really in his character, but only superinduced upon 
it by change of position ; that his excellent qualities were 
but disguised from the world by clouds of loose behaviour, 
which, when the time came, he threw off, and appeared as 
he really was. To translate the reason and process of this 
change into dramatic form and expression was the problem 
which the Poet undertook to solve in these two plays. 



INTRODUCTION. 2$ 

' In his delineation of the Prince Shakespeare followed 
the historians as far as they gave him any solid ground to 
go upon ; where they failed him, he supplied the matter 
from his own stores. Now in all reason Prince Hal must 
have had companions in the merry-makings which are re- 
lated of him ; for no man of sense goes into such pastimes 
alone. But of the particular persons " unletter'd, rude, and 
shallow," with whom he had "his hours filPd up with riots, 
banquets, sports," nothing was known, not even their names. 
So that the Poet had no way to set forth this part of the 
man's life but by creating one or more representative char- 
acters, concentrating in them such a fund of mental attrac- 
tions as might overcome the natural repugnance of an 
upright and noble mind to their vices. Which is just what 
the Poet does in this instance. And his method was, to em- 
body in imaginary forms that truth of which the actual 
forms had not been preserved ; for, as Hallam well ob- 
serves, " what he invented is as truly historical, in the large 
sense of moral history, as what he read." 

From the account already given of Bolingbroke it is plain 
enough what state of things would be likely to wait on him. 
His great force of character would needs give shape and 
tone to Court and Council-board, while his subtlety and 
intricacy might well render the place any thing but inviting 
to a young man of free and generous aptitudes. That the 
Prince, as Shakespeare conceived him, should breathe some- 
what hard in such an atmosphere, is not difficult to under- 
stand. However he may respect such a father, and though 
in thought he may even approve the public counsels, still he 
relucts to share in them, as going against his grain ; and so 
is naturally drawn away either to such occupations where his 
high-strung energies can act without crossing his honourable 



26 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

feelings, or else to some tumultuous merry-makings w± ; th 
laying off all distinct purpose, and untying his mind into 
perfect dishabille, he can let his bounding spirits run out in 
transports of frolic and fun. The question then is, to what 
sort of attractions will he betake himself? It must be no 
ordinary companionship that yields entertainment to such a 
spirit even in his loosest moments. Whatever bad or ques- 
tionable elements may mingle in his mirth, it must have some 
fresh and rich ingredients, some sparkling and generous 
flavour, to make him relish it. Any thing like vulgar rowdy- 
ism cannot fail of disgusting him. His ears were never 
organized to that sort of music. 

Here then we have a sort of dramatic necessity for the 
character of Falstaff. To answer the purpose, it was imper- 
ative that he should be just such a marvellous congregation 
of charms and vices as he is. None but an old man could 
be at once so dissolute and so discerning, or appear to think 
so much like a wise man even when talking most unwisely ; 
and he must have a world of wit and sense, to reconcile a 
mind of such native rectitude and penetration to his profli- 
gate courses. In the qualities of Sir John we can easily see 
how the Prince might be the madcap reveller that history 
gives him out, and yet be all the while laying in choice 
preparations of wisdom and virtue, so as to need no other 
conversion than the calls of duty and the opportunities of 
noble enterprise. 

Character of Falstaff. 

FalstafFs character is more complex than can well be 
digested into the forms of logical statement ; which makes 
him a rather impracticable subject for analysis. He has so 
much, or is so much, that one cannot easily tell what he is. 



INTRODUCTION. 2? 

Diverse and even opposite qualities meet in him ; yet they 
poise so evenly, blend so happily, and work together so 
smoothly, that no generalities can set him off; if we under- 
take to grasp him in a formal conclusion, the best part of 
him still escapes between the fingers ; so that the only way 
to give an idea of him is to take the man himself along 
and show him ; and who shall do this with " plump Jack " ? 
One of the wittiest of men, yet he is not a wit; one of 
the most sensual of men, still he cannot with strict justice 
be called a sensualist ; he has a strong sense of danger and 
a lively regard to his own safety, a peculiar vein indeed of 
cowardice, or something very like it, yet he is not a coward ; 
he lies and brags prodigiously, still he is not a liar nor a 
braggart. Any such general descriptions applied to him can 
serve no end but to make us think we understand him when 
we do not. 

If I were to fix upon any one thing as specially charac- 
teristic of Falstaff, I should say it is an amazing fund of 
good sense. His stock of this, to be sure, is pretty much all 
enlisted in the service of sensuality, yet nowise so but that 
the servant still overpeers and outshines the master. Then 
too his thinking has such agility, and is at the same time so 
pertinent, as to do the work of the most prompt and popping 
wit; yet in such sort as to give the impression of some- 
thing much larger and stronger than wit. For mere wit, be 
it ever so good, requires to be sparingly used, and the more 
it tickles the sooner it tires ; like salt, it is grateful as a sea- 
soning, but will not do as food. Hence it is that great 
wits, unless they have great judgment too, are so apt to be 
great bores. But no one ever wearies of Falstaff' s talk, 
who has the proper sense for it ; his speech being like pure 
fresh cold water, which always tastes good because it is 



28 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

tasteless. The wit of other men seems to be some special 
faculty or mode of thought, and lies in a quick seizing of 
remote and fanciful affinities ; in Falstaff it lies not in any 
one thing more than another, for which cause it cannot be 
denned : and I know not how to describe it but as that 
roundness and evenness of mind which we call good sense, 
so quickened and pointed indeed as to produce the effect of 
wit, yet without hindrance to its own proper effect. To 
use a snug idiomatic phrase, what Falstaff says always fits 
all round. 

And Falstaff is well aware of his power in this respect. 
He is vastly proud of it too ; yet his pride never shows 
itself in an offensive shape, his good sense having a certain 
instinctive delicacy that keeps him from every thing like 
that. In this proud consciousness of his resources he is 
always at ease ; hence in part the ineffable charm of his 
conversation.* Never at a loss, and never apprehensive 
that he shall be at a loss, he therefore never exerts him- 
self, nor takes any concern for the result ; so that nothing 
is strained or far-fetched : relying calmly on his strength, 
he invites the toughest trials, as knowing that his powers 
will bring him off without any using of the whip or the 
spur, and by merely giving the rein to their natural brisk- 
ness and celerity. Hence it is also that he so often lets go 
all regard to prudence of speech, and thrusts himself into 
tight places and predicaments : he thus makes or seeks 
occasions to exercise his fertility and alertness of thought, 
being well assured that he shall still come off uncornered, 
and that the greater his seeming perplexity, the greater 
will be his triumph. Which explains the purpose of his 
incomprehensible lies : he tells them, surely, not expecting 
them to be believed, but partly for the pleasure he takes ro 



INTRODUCTION. 20, 

the excited play of his faculties, partly for the surprise he 
causes by his still more incomprehensible feats of dodging. 
Such is his story about the men in buckram who grew so 
soon from two to eleven ; and how " three misbegotten 
knaves in Kendall green came at my back, and let drive at 
me ; — for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy 
hand"; — lies which, as himself knows well enough, are 
"gross as a mountain, open, palpable." These, I take it, 
are studied self-exposures, to invite an attack. Else why 
should he thus affirm in the same breath the colour of the 
men's clothes and the darkness of the night? The whole 
thing is clearly a scheme, to provoke his hearers to come 
down upon him, and then witch them with his facility and 
felicity in extricating himself. And so, when they pounce 
upon him, and seem to have him in their toils, he forthwith 
springs a diversion upon them : 

Prince. What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find 
out, to hide thee from this open and apparent shame ? 

Fals. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as He that made ye. Why, hear 
ye, my masters : was it for me to kill the heir-apparent ? Should I turn 
upon the true Prince? Why, thou know'st I am as valiant as Hercules; 
but beware instinct : the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a 
great matter : I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself 
and thee during my life ; I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. 

To understand this aright, we must bear in mind, that 
according to the general rule of succession Prince Henry 
was not the true prince. Legally considered, his father was 
an usurper ; and he could have no right to the crown but in 
virtue of some higher law. This higher law is authenti- 
cated by FalstarT's instinct. The lion, king of beasts, knows 
royalty by royal intuition. 

Such is the catastrophe for which the foregoing acts, the 
hacking of his sword, the insinuations of cowardice, the 



30 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

boastings, and the palpable lies, were the prologue and 
preparation. So that his course here is all of a piece with 
his usual practice of involving himself in difficulties, the 
better to set off his readiness at shifts and evasions ; know- 
ing that, the more he gets entangled in his talk, the richer 
will be the effect when by a word he slips off the entangle- 
ment. I am persuaded that Sir John suspected all the 
while who their antagonists were in the Gads-hill robbery ; 
but determined to fall in with and humour the joke, on 
purpose to make sport for the Prince and himself, and at 
the same time to retort their deception by pretending igno- 
rance. 

We have similar feats of dodging in the scene where Fal- 
staff rails at the Hostess for keeping a house where pockets 
are picked, and also at the Prince for saying that his ring 
was copper. The Prince entering just then, the Hostess 
tells him of the affair, Falstaff goes to railing at her again, 
and she defends herself ; which brings on the following : 

Prince. Thou sayest true, Hostess ; and he slanders thee most grossly. 

Host. So he doth you, my lord ; and said, this other day, you ought him 
a thousand pound. 

Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound ? 

Fals. A thousand pound, Hal ! a million ! Thy love is worth a million ; 
thou owest me thy love. 

Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel you. 

Fals. Did I, Bardolph ? 

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so. 

Fals. Yea ; if he said my ring was copper. 

Prince. I say 'tis copper : darest thou be as good as thy word now ? 

Fals. Why, Hal, thou know'st, as thou art but man, I dare ; but, as thou 
art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp. 

Prince. And why not as the lion ? 

Fals. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I'll 
fear thee as I fear thy father ? 

Prince. Sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

bosom of thine. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket ! Why, 
thou impudent, emboss'd rascal, if there were any thing in thy pocket but 
tavern-reckonings, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee 
long-winded; if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but 
these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it ; you will not pocket up 
wrong : art thou not ashamed ! 

Fals. Dost thou hear Hal? Thou know'st, in the state of innocency 
Adam fell : and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy ? 
Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty, 

In all these replies there is clearly nothing more to be 
said. And thus, throughout, no exigency turns up but that 
Sir John is ready with a word that exactly fits into and fills 
the place. And his tactics lie not in turning upon his pur- 
suers and holding them at bay ; but, when the time is ripe, 
and they seem to have caught him, he instantaneously 
diverts them upon another scent, or else enchants them into 
a pause by his nimble-footed sallies and escapes. 

Elsewhere the same faculty shows itself in a quick turn- 
ing of events to his own advantage ; as at the battle of 
Shrewsbury, when, being assailed by Douglas, he falls down 
as if killed, and in that condition witnesses the fall of Hot- 
spur; and then claps up a scheme for appropriating the 
honour of his death. The stratagem must be given in his 
own words : 

'Sblood ! 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid 
me scot and lot too. Counterfeit ! I lie ; I am no counterfeit : to die, is to 
be a counterfeit ; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the 
life of a man : but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be 
no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The bettei 
part of valour is discretion ; in the which better part I have saved my life. — 
Zwounds! I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How, 
if he should counterfeit too, and rise ? By my faith, I am afraid he would 
prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll 
swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I ? Nothing confutes 
me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in 
your thigh, come you along with me. 



32 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

He then shoulders the body and walks off. Presently he 
meets the Prince and his brother John, throws down the 
body, and we have the following : 

Fals. There is Percy ! if your father will do me any honour, so ; if not, 
jet him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can 
assure you. 

Prince. Why, Percy I killed, myself, and saw thee dead. 

Fals. Didst thou ! — Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying ! — I 
grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he ; but we rose both 
at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be 
believed, so ; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon 
their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the 
thigh : if the man were alive, and would deny it, zwounds ! I would make 
him eat a piece of my sword. 

Here his action as exactly fits into and fills the place as 
his words do in other cases. He carries the point, not by 
disputing the Prince's claim, but by making it appear that 
they both beat down the valiant Hotspur in succession. If 
the Prince left Hotspur dead, he saw Falstaff dead too. 
And Falstaff most adroitly clinches his scheme by giving 
this mistake such a turn as to accredit his own lies. 

It has been said that Shakespeare displays no great force 
of invention ; and that in the incidents of his dramas he 
borrows much more than he originates. It is true, he dis- 
covers no pride nor prodigality of inventiveness ; he shows 
indeed a noble indifference on that score ; cares not to get 
up new plots and incidents of his own where he finds them 
ready-made to his hand. Which is to me, as I have else- 
where remarked, good evidence that he prized novelty in 
such things at its true worth, and chose to spend his force 
on the weightier matters of his art. But he is inventive 
enough whenever he has occasion to be so ; and in these 
incidents about Falstaff, as in hundreds of others, he shows 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

a fertility and aptness of invention in due measure and keep- 
ing with his other gifts. 

Falstaff finds special matter of self-exultation in that the 
tranquil, easy contact and grapple of his mind acts as 9 
potent stimulus on others, provided they be capable of it, 
lifting them up to his own height. " Men of all sorts," says 
he, " take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish- 
compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that 
tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me ; 
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in 
other men." Here it is plain that he is himself proud of 
the pride that others take in girding at him ; he enjoys their 
wit even more than they do, because he is the begetter of it. 
He is the flint, to draw sparks from their steel, and himself 
shines by the light he causes them to emit. For, in truth, 
to laugh and to provoke laughter is with him the chief end 
of man. Which is further shown in what he says of Prince 
John : " Good faith, this same young, sober-blooded boy 
doth not love me ; nor a man cannot make him laugh." He 
sees that the brain of this dry youth has nothing for him to 
get hold of or work upon ; that, be he ever so witty in him- 
self, he cannot be the cause of any wit in him ; and he is 
vexed and chagrined that his wit fails upon him. And John- 
son, speaking of Prince John's frosty-hearted virtue, well 
remarks that " he who cannot be softened into gayety cannot 
easily be melted into kindness." And, let me add, none 
are so hopeless as they that have no bowels. Austere boys 
are not apt to make large-souled men. And it was this same 
strait-laced youth who, in the history as in the play, after- 
wards broke faith with the Archbishop and other insurgent 
leaders near York, snapping them up with a mean and cruel 
act of perfidy, and, which is more, thought the better of him- 



34 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

self for having done so. I suspect Prince Henry is nearer 
Heaven in his mirth than Prince John in his prayers ! 

This power of generating wit and thought in others is 
what, in default of entertainment for his nobler qualities, 
attracts the Prince ; who evidently takes to Sir John chiefly 
for the mental excitement of his conversation. And, on the 
other hand, Falstaff's pride of wit is specially gratified in the 
fascination he has over the Prince ; and he spares no pains, 
scruples no knavery, to work diversion for him. Witness 
what he says to himself when tempering Justice Shallow 
" between his finger and his thumb " : "I will devise matter 
enough out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual 
laughter the wearing-out of six fashions. O, it is much that 
a lie with a slight oath, and a jest with a sad brow, will do 
with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders. O, 
you shall see him laugh, till his face be like a wet cloak ill 
laid up." 

Nor has Falstaff any difficulty in stirring up congenial 
motions in the Prince, insomuch that the teacher sometimes 
has enough to do to keep his leading. Falstaff is the same 
in this respect when the Prince is away ; indeed his wit is 
never more fluent and racy than in his soliloquies. But it 
is not so with the Prince ; as appears in his occasional 
playing with other characters, where he is indeed sprightly 
and sensible enough, but wants the nimbleness and raciness 
of wit which he displays in conversation with Sir John. 
The cause of which plainly is, that Falstaff has his wit in 
himself; the Prince, in virtue of FalstafPs presence. With 
Sir John the Prince is nearly as great as he in the same 
kind ; without him, he has none of his greatness ; though 
he has a greatness of his own which is far better, and which 
Falstaff is so far from having in himself, that he cannot even 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

perceive it in another. Accordingly it is remarkable that 
Prince Henry is the only person in the play who understands 
Falstaff, and the only one too whom Falstaff does not under- 
stand. 

One of Sir John's greatest triumphs is in his first scene 
with the Chief Justice ; the purpose of that scene being, 
apparently, to justify the Prince in yielding to his fascina- 
tions, by showing that there is no gravity so firm but he 
can thaw it into mirth, provided it be the gravity of a fertile 
and genial mind. And so, here, the sternness with which 
this wise and upright man begins is charmed into playfulness 
before he gets through. He slides insensibly into the style 
of Sir John, till at last he falls to downright punning. He 
even seems to draw out the interview, that he may taste the 
delectable spicery of Falstaffs talk ; and we fancy him laugh- 
ing repeatedly in his sleeve while they are talking, and then 
roaring himself into stitches directly he gets out of sight. 
Nor, unless our inward parts be sadly out of gear, can we 
help loving and honouring him the more for being drawn 
into such an intellectual frolic by such an intellectual player. 

Palstaff's Humour. 

Coleridge denies that Falstaff has, properly speaking, any 
humour. Coleridge is high authority indeed ; nevertheless 
I cannot so come at Sir John but that his whole mental 
structure seems pervaded with a most grateful and refresh- 
ing moisture ; nor can I well understand any definition of 
humour that would exclude him from being among the 
greatest of all both verbal and practical humourists. Just 
think of his proposing Bardolph, — an offscouring and pack- 
age of dregs which he has picked up, nobody can guess 



$6 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

wherefore, unless because his face has turned into a per- 
petual blush and carbuncle; — just think of his proposing 
such a person for security, and that too to one who knows 
them both ! To my sense, his humour is shown alike in 
the offer of such an endorser and in what he says about the 
refusal of it. And in his most exigent moments this juice 
keeps playing in with rarely- exhilarating effect, as in the 
exploit at Gadshill and the battle of Shrewsbury. And 
everywhere he manifestly takes a huge pleasure in referring 
to his own peculiarities, and putting upon them the most 
grotesque and droll and whimsical constructions, no one 
enjoying the jests that are vented on him more than he does 
himself. 

Falstaff's overflowing humour results in a placid good- 
nature towards those about him, and attaches them by the 
mere remembrance of pleasure in his company. The tone 
of feeling he inspires is well shown in what the Hostess says 
when he leaves her for the wars : " Well, fare thee well : I 
have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod- 
time ; but an honester and truer-hearted man — : well, fare 
thee well." She wants to say some good of him which she 
cannot quite say, it is so glaringly untrue ; the only in- 
stance, by the way, of her being checked by any scruples 
on that score. This feeling of the Hostess is especially 
significant in view of what has passed between them. She 
cannot keep angry at him, because in his roughest speeches 
there is something tells her it is all a mere carousal of his 
wits. Even when she is most at odds with him, a soothing 
word at once sweetens her thoughts ; so that, instead of 
pushing him for the money he has borrowed, she pawns her 
plate, to lend him ten pounds more. 

And so in regard to his other associates : he often abuses 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

them outrageously, so far as this can be done by words, yet 
they are not really hurt by it, and never think of resenting it. 
Perhaps, indeed, they do not respect him enough to feel 
resentment towards him. But, in truth, the juiciness of his 
spirit not only keeps malice out of him, but keeps others from 
imputing it to him. Then too he lets off as great tempests 
of abuse upon himself, and means just as much by them : 
they are but exercises of his powers, and this, merely for the 
exercise itself ; that is, they are play ; having indeed a kind 
of earnestness, but it is the earnestness of sport. Hence, 
whether alone or in company, he not only has all his faculties 
about him, but takes the same pleasure in exerting them, if 
it may be called exertion ; for they always seem to go of their 
own accord. It is remarkable that he soliloquizes more than 
any of the Poet's characters except Hamlet ; thought being 
equally an everspringing impulse in them both, though, to be 
sure, in very different forms. 

His Practical Sagacity. 

Nor is Falstaffs mind tied to exercises of wit and humour. 
He is indeed the greatest of make-sports, but he is some- 
thing more. (He must be something more, else he could 
not be that.) He has as much practical sagacity and pene- 
tration as the King. Except the Prince, there is no person 
in the play who sees so far into the characters of those about 
him. Witness his remarks about Justice Shallow and his 
men : " It is a wonderful thing to see the semblable cohe- 
rence of his men's spirits and his : they, by observing of him^ 
do bear themselves like foolish justices ; he, by conversing 
with them, is turned into a justice-like serving-man. If I had 
a suit to Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the 
imputation of being near their master ; if to his men, I would 



38 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

curry with Master Shallow, that no man could better command 
his servants." Which is indeed a most shrewd and search- 
ing commentary on what Sir John has just seen and heard. 
It is impossible to hit them off more felicitously. 

I must add, that with Shallow and Silence for his theme 
Falstaff's wit fairly grows gigantic, and this too without any 
abatement of its frolicsome agility. The strain of humorous 
exaggeration with which he pursues the theme in soliloquy 
is indeed almost sublime. Yet in some of his reflections 
thereon, as in the passage just quoted, we have a clear 
though brief view of the profound philosopher underlying 
the profligate humourist and make-sport ; for he there dis- 
covers a breadth and sharpness of observation, and a depth 
of practical sagacity, such as might have placed him in the 
front rank of statesmen and sages. 

Is Falstaff a Coward? 

I have said that Falstaff, though having a peculiar vein 
of something very like cowardice, is not a coward. This 
sounds paradoxical, but I think it just. On this point Mac- 
kenzie speaks with rare exactness. "Though," says he, "I 
will not go so far as to ascribe valour to Falstaff, yet his 
cowardice, if fairly examined, will be found to be not so 
much a weakness as a principle : he has the sense of danger, 
but not the discomposure of fear." In approval of this, it 
is to be observed that amid the perilous exigencies of the 
fight his matchless brain is never a whit palsied with fear ; 
and no sooner has he fallen down to save his life by a coun- 
terfeit death, than all his wits are at work to convert his fall 
into a purchase of honour. Certainly his cowardice, if the 
word must still be applied to him, is not such as either to 
keep him out of danger or to lose him the use of his powers 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

in it. Whether surrounded with pleasures or perils, his 
sagacity never in the least forsakes him ; and his unabated 
purlings of humour when death is busy all about him, and 
even when others are taunting him with cowardice, seem 
hardly reconcilable with the character generally set upon him 
in this respect. 

As there is no touch of poetry in Falstaff, he sees nothing 
in the matter of honour but the sign ; and he has more 
good sense than to set such a value on this as to hazard 
that for which alone he holds it desirable. To have his 
name seasoned sweet in the world's regard he does not look 
upon as signifying any real worth in himself, and so furnish- 
ing just ground of self-respect ; but only as it may yield 
him the pleasures and commodities of life : whereas the 
very soul of honour is, that it will sooner part with life than 
forfeit this ground of self-respect. For honour, true honour, 
is indeed a kind of social conscience. 

Relation of Falstaff and the Prince. 

Falstaff is altogether the greatest triumph of the comic 
Muse that the world has to show. In this judgment I 
believe that all who have fairly conversed with the irre- 
sistible old sinner are agreed. In the varied and delectable 
wealth of his conversation, it is not easy to select such parts 
as are most characteristic of the man ; and I have rather 
aimed to quote what would best illustrate my points than 
what is best in itself. Of a higher order and a finer texture 
than any thing I have produced is the scene where Falstaff 
personates the King, to examine the Prince upon the par- 
ticulars of his life. It is too long for quotation here ; and I 
can but refer to it as probably the choicest issue of comic 
preparation that genius has ever bequeathed to human 
enjoyment. 



40 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

Upon the whole, then, I think Falstaff may be justly 
described as having all the intellectual qualities that enter 
into the composition of practical wisdom, without one of 
the moral. If to his powers of understanding were joined 
an imagination equal, it is hardly too much to say he would 
be as great a poet as Shakespeare. And in all this we have, 
it seems to me, just the right constituents of perfect fitness 
for the dramatic purpose and exigency which his character 
was meant to answer. In his solid and clear understanding, 
his discernment and large experience, his fulness and quick- 
ness of wit and resource, and his infinite humour, what were 
else dark in the life of Prince Henry is made plain ; and we 
can hardly fail to see how he is drawn to what is in itself 
bad indeed, yet drawn in virtue of something within him 
that still prefers him in our esteem. With less of wit, sense, 
and spirit, Sir John could have got no hold on the Prince ; 
and if to these attractive qualities he had not joined others 
of a very Odious and repulsive kind, he would have held 
him too fast. 

FalstafTs Immoralities. 

I suppose it is no paradox to say that, hugely as we de- 
light to be with Falstaff, he is notwithstanding just about 
the last man that any one would wish to resemble ; which 
fact, as I take it, is enough of itself to keep the pleasure of 
his part free from any moral infection or taint. And our 
repugnance to being like him is not so much because he 

ft 

offends the moral feelings as because he hardly touches 
them at all, one way or the other. The character seems to 
lie mainly out of their sphere ; and they agree to be silent 
towards him, as having practically disrobed himself of moral 
attributes. Now, however bad we may be, these are proba- 



INTRODUCTION. 41 

bly the last elements of our being that we would consent to 
part with. Nor, perhaps, is there any thing that our nature 
so vitally shrinks away from, as to have men's moral feelings 
sleep concerning us. To be treated as beneath blame, is 
the greatest indignity that can be offered us. Who would 
not rather be hated by men than be such as they should not 
respect enough to hate ? 

This aloofness of the moral feelings seems owing in great 
part to the fact of the character impressing us, throughout, 
as that of a player ; though such a player, whose good sense 
keeps every thing stagey and theatrical out of his playing. 
He lives but to furnish, for himself and others, intellectual 
wine, and his art lies in turning every thing about him into 
this. His immoralities are mostly such wherein the ludi- 
crous element is prominent ; and in the entertainment of 
this their other qualities are lost sight of. The animal sus- 
ceptibilities of our nature are .in him carried up to their 
highest pitch ; his several appetites hug their respective 
objects with exquisite gust ; his vast plumpness is all mellow 
with physical delight and satisfaction ; and he converts it 
all into thought and mirth. Moreover his speech borrows 
additional flavour and effect from the thick foldings of flesh 
which it oozes through ; therefore he glories in his much 
flesh, and cherishes it as being the procreant cradle of jests : 
if his body is fat, it enables his tongue to drop fatness ; and 
in the chambers of his brain all the pleasurable agitations 
that pervade the structure below are curiously wrought into 
mental delectation. With how keen and inexhaustible a 
relish does he pour down sack, as if he tasted it all over and 
through his body, to the ends of his fingers and toes ! yet 
who does not see that he has more pleasure in discoursing 
about it than in drinking it ? And so it is through all the 



42 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

particulars of his enormous sensuality. And he makes the 
same use of his vices and infirmities ; nay, he often carica- 
tures those he has, and sometimes affects those he has not, 
that he may get the same profit out of them. 

Thus Falstaff strikes us, throughout, as acting a part ; inso- 
much that our conscience of right and wrong has little more 
to do with the man himself than with a good representation 
of him on the stage. And his art, if not original and innate, 
has become second nature : if the actor was not bom with 
him, it has grown to him, and become a part of him, so that 
he cannot lay it off; and if he has nobody else to entertain, 
he must still keep playing for the entertainment of himself. 
But because we do not think of applying moral tests to him, 
therefore, however we may surrender to his fascinations, we 
never feel any respect for him. And it is very considerable 
that he has no self-respect. The reason of which is close at 
hand : for respect is a sentiment of which mere players, as 
such, are not legitimate objects. Not but that actors may 
be very worthy, upright men : there have been many capital 
gentlemen among them : as such, they are indeed abundantly 
respectable : but in the useful callings men are respected for 
their calling's sake, even though their characters be not 
deserving of respect ; which seems not to be the case with 
men of the stage. And as Falstaff is no less a player to him- 
self than to others, he therefore respects himself as little as 
others respect him. 

It must not be supposed, however, that because he touches 
the moral feelings so little one way or the other, therefore his 
company and conversation were altogether harmless to those 
who actually shared them. It is not, cannot be so ; nor has 
the Poet so represented it. " Evil communications corrupt, 
good manners," whether known and felt to be evil or not. 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

And so the ripe understanding of FalstafT himself teaches us : 
" It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is 
caught, as men take diseases one of another ; therefore let 
men take heed of their company." In the intercourse of 
men there are always certain secret, mysterious influences at 
work : the conversation of others affects us without our know- 
ing it, and by methods past our finding out ; and it is always 
a sacrament of harm to be in the society of those whom we 
do not respect. 

In all that happens to Falstaff, the being cast off at last by 
the Prince is the only thing that really hurts his feelings. 
And as this is the only thing that hurts him, so it is the only 
one that does him any good : for he is strangely inaccessible 
to inward suffering ; and yet nothing but this can make him 
better. His character keeps on developing, and growing 
rather worse, to the end of the play ; and there are some 
positive indications of a hard bad heart in him. His abuse 
of Shallow's hospitality is exceedingly detestable, and argues 
that hardening of all within which tells far more against a 
man than almost any amount of mere sensuality. For it is a 
great mistake to suppose that our sensual vices, though they 
may and often do work the most harm to ourselves, are 
morally the worst. The malignant vices, those that cause us 
to take pleasure in the pain or damage of others, — it is in 
these that Hell is most especially concentrated. Satan is 
neither a glutton nor a wine-bibber ; he himself stoops not to 
the lusts of the flesh, though he delights to see his poor dupes 
eaten up by them : but to gloat over or to feast on the agonies 
that one inflicts, this is truly Satanic. In the matter about 
Justice Shallow we are let into those worse traits of FalstafT, 
such as his unscrupulous and unrelenting selfishness, which 
had else escaped our dull perceptions, but which, through all 



44 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

the disguises of art, have betrayed themselves to the appre- 
hensive discernment of Prince Henry. Thus we here come 
upon the delicate thread which connects that sapient Justice 
with what I have stated to be the main purpose of the drama. 
The bad usage which Falstaff puts upon Shallow has the effect 
of justifying to us the usage which he at last receives from 
the Prince. And something of the kind was needful in order 
to bring the Prince's character off from such an act altogether 
bright and sweet in our regard. For, after sharing so long in 
the man's prodigality of mental exhilaration, to shut down 
upon him so, was pretty hard. 

I must not leave Sir John without remarking how he is a 
sort of public brain from which shoot forth nerves of commu- 
nication through all the limbs and members of the common- 
wealth. The most broadly-representative, perhaps, of all 
ideal characters, his conversations are as diversified as his 
capabilities ; so that through him the vision is let forth into a 
long-drawn yet clear perspective of old English life and man- 
ners. What a circle of vices and obscurities and nobilities 
are sucked into his train ! how various in size and quality the 
orbs that revolve around him and shine by his light ! from 
the immediate heir of England and the righteous Lord Chief 
Justice to poor Robin Ostler who died of one idea, having 
"never joy'd since the price of oats rose." He is indeed a 
multitudinous man ; and can spin fun enough out of his mar- 
vellous brain to make all the world "laugh and grow fat." 

Mrs. Quickly the Hostess. 

We have had several glimpses of Mrs. Quickly, the Host- 
ess of Eastcheap. She is well worth a steady looking at. 
One of the most characteristic passages in the play is her 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

account of FalstafT's engagement to her; which has been 
aptly commented on by Coleridge as showing how her mind 
runs altogether in the rut of actual events. She can think 
of things only in the precise order of their occurrence, hav- 
ing no power to select such as touch her purpose, and to 
detach them from the circumstantial irrelevancies with which 
they are consorted in her memory. 

In keeping with this mental peculiarity, her character 
savours strongly of her whereabout in life ; she is plentifully 
trimmed with vices and vulgarities, and these all taste rankly 
of her place and calling, thus showing that she has as much 
of moral as of mental passiveness. Notwithstanding, she 
always has an odour of womanhood about her, even her 
worst features being such as none but a woman could have. 
Nor is her character, with all its ludicrous and censurable 
qualities, unrelieved, as we have seen, by traits of generosity 
that relish equally of her sex. It is even doubtful whether 
she would have entertained Sir John's proposals of marriage 
so favourably, but that at the time of making them he was in 
a condition to need her kindness. Her woman's heart could 
not stint itself from the plump old sinner when he had 
wounds to be dressed and pains to be soothed. And who 
but a woman could speak such words of fluttering eagerness 
as she speaks in urging on his arrest : " Do your offices, do 
your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare ; do me, do me, 
do me your offices " ; where her heart seems palpitating with 
an anxious hope that her present action may make another 
occasion for her kind ministrations ? Sometimes, indeed, she 
gets wrought up to a pretty high pitch of temper, but she 
cannot hold herself there ; and between her turns of anger 
and her returns to sweetness there is room for more of 
womanly feeling than I shall venture to describe. And there 



46 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

is still more of the woman in the cunning simplicity — or is 
it simpleness? — with which she manages to keep her good 
opinion of Sir John ; as when, on being told that at his 
death "he cried out of women, and said they were devils 
incarnate," she replies, " 'A never could abide carnation ; 
'twas a colour he never liked" ; as if she could find no sense 
in his words but what would stand smooth with her interest 
and her affection. 

It is curious to observe how Mrs. Quickly dwells on the 
confines of virtue and shame, and sometimes plays over 
the borders, ever clinging to the reputation, and perhaps to 
the consciousness, of the one, without foreclosing the invi- 
tations of the other. For it is very evident that even in 
her worst doings she hides from herself their ill-favour 
under a fair name ; as people often paint the cheeks of their 
vices, and then look them sweetly in the face, though they 
cannot but know the paint is all that keeps them from 
being unsightly and loathsome. In her case, however, this 
may spring, in part, from a simplicity not unlike that which 
sometimes causes little children to shut their eyes at what 
affrights them, and then think themselves safe. And yet 
she shows considerable knowledge of the world ; is not 
without shrewdness in her way; but, in truth, the world 
her soul lives in, and grows intelligent of, is itself a disci- 
pline of moral obtuseness ; and this is one reason why she 
loves it. On the whole, therefore, Mrs. Quickly must be 
set down as a naughty woman ; the Poet clearly meant her 
so ; and, in mixing so much of good with the general pre- 
ponderance of bad in her composition, he has shown a rare 
spirit of wisdom, such as may well remind us that "both 
good men and bad men are apt to be less so than they 
seem." 



INTRODUCTION. 47 

Shallow and Silence. 

Such is one formation of life to which the Poet conducts 
us by a pathway leading from Sir John. But we have an 
avenue opening out from him into a much richer formation. 
Aside from the humour of the characters themselves, there 
is great humour of art in the bringing- together of Falstaff 
and Shallow. Whose risibilities are not quietly shaken up 
to the centre, as he studies the contrast between them, and 
the sources of their interest in each other ? Shallow is 
vastly proud of his acquaintance with Sir John, and runs 
over with consequentiality as he reflects upon it. Sir John 
understands this perfectly, and is drawn to him quite as 
much for the pleasure of making a butt of him as in the 
hope of currying a road to his purse. 

One of the most potent spots in Justice Shallow is the 
exulting self-complacency with which he remembers his 
youthful essays in profligacy ; wherein, though without 
suspecting it, he was the sport and byword of his compan- 
ions j he having shown in them the same boobyish alacrity 
as he now shows in prating about them. His reminiscences 
in this line are superlatively diverting, partly, perhaps, as 
reminding us of a perpetual sort of people, not unfrequently 
met with in the intercourse of life. 

Another choice spot in Shallow is a huge love or habit 
of talking on when he has nothing to say ; as though his 
tongue were hugging and kissing his words. Thus, when 
Sir John asks to be excused from staying with him over 
night : " I will not excuse you ; you shall not be excused ; 
excuses shall not be admitted ; there is no excuse shall 
serve ; you shall not be excused." And he lingers upon his 
words and keeps rolling them over in his mouth with a still 



48 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

keener relish in the garden after supper. This fond caress- 
ing of his phrases springs not merely from sterility of 
thought, but partly also from that vivid self-appreciation 
which causes him to dwell with such rapture on the spirited 
sallies of his youth. 

One more point about fetches the compass of his genius, 
he being considerable mainly for his loquacious thinness. 
It is well instanced in his appreciation of Sir John's witti- 
cism on Mouldy, one of the recruits he is taking up : 

Fals. Is thy name Mouldy ? 
Moul. Yea, an't please you. 
Fals. 'Tis the more time thou wert used. 

Shal. Ha, ha, ha ! most excellent, i'faith ! things that are mouldy lack 
use : very singular good ! In faith, well said, Sir John ; very well said. 

The mixture of conceit and sycophancy here is charming. 
Of course it is not so much the wit as his own perception 
of the wit, that the critic admires. 

One would suppose the force of feebleness had done its 
best in Shallow, yet it is made to do several degrees better 
in his cousin, Justice Silence. The tautology of the one 
has its counterpart in the taciturnity of the other. And 
Shallow's habit in this may have grown, in part, from talk- 
ing to his cousin, and getting no replies ; for Silence has 
scarce life enough to answer, unless it be to echo the ques- 
tion. The only faculty he seems to have is memory, and he 
has not force enough of his own to set even this in motion ; 
nothing but excess of wine can make it stir. So that his 
taciturnity is but the proper outside of his essential vacuity, 
and springs from sheer dearth of soul. He is indeed a stu- 
pendous platitude of a man ! The character is poetical by 
a sort of inversion ; as extreme ugliness sometimes has the 
effect of beauty, and fascinates the eye. 



INTRODUCTION. 49 

Shakespeare evinces a peculiar delight sometimes in 
weaving poetical conceptions round the leanest subjects ; 
and we have no finer instance of this than where Silence, 
his native sterility of brain being overcome by the working 
of sack on his memory, keeps pouring forth snatches from 
old ballads. How delicately comical the volubility with 
which he trundles off the fag-ends of popular ditties, when 
in "the sweet of the night" his heart has grown rich with 
the exhilaration of wine ! Who can ever forget the exquis- 
ite humour of the contrast between Silence dry and Silence 
drunk ? 

In this vocal flow of Silence we catch the right spirit and 
style of old English mirth. For he must have passed his 
life in an atmosphere of song, since it was only by dint of 
long custom and endless repetition that so passive a mem- 
ory as his could have got stored with such matter. And 
the snatches he sings are fragments of old minstrelsy " that 
had long been heard in the squire's hall and the yeoman's 
chimney-corner," where friends and neighbours were wont 
to "sing aloud old songs, the precious music of the heart." 

These two sapient Justices are admirably fitted to each 
other, for indeed they have worn together. Shallow highly 
appreciates his kinsman, who in turn looks up to him as his 
great man, and as a kind of superior nature. It were hardly 
fair to quit them without referring to their piece of dialogue 
about old Double ; where in all the ludicrous oddity of the 
thing we have touches that " feelingly persuade us what we 
are." And I suppose there is none so poor shell of human- 
ity but that, if we apply our ear, and listen intently, " from 
within are heard murmurings whereby the monitor expresses 
mysterious union with its native sea." It is considerable 
that this bit of dialogue occurs at our first meeting with the 



50 KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 

speakers ; as if on purpose to set and gauge our feelings 
aright towards them ; to forestall and prevent an overmuch 
rising of contempt for them ; which is probably about the 
worst feeling we can cherish. 

Concluding Remarks. 

The drama of King Henry the Fourth, taking the two 
Parts as artistically one, is deservedly ranked among the 
very highest of Shakespeare's achievements. The charac- 
terization, whether for quantity or quality or variety, or 
again whether regarded in the individual development or 
the dramatic combination, is above all praise. And yet, 
large and free as is the scope here given to invention, the 
parts are all strictly subordinated to the idea of the whole 
as an historical drama; insomuch that even Falstaff, richly 
ideal as is the character, everywhere helps on the history; 
a whole century of old English wit and sense and humour 
being crowded together and compacted in him. And one 
is surprised withal, upon reflection, to see how many scraps 
and odd minutes of intelligence are here to be met with. 
The Poet seems indeed to have been almost everywhere, 
and brought away some tincture and relish of the place ; as 
though his body were set full of eyes, and every eye took 
in matter of thought and memory : here we have the smell 
of eggs and butter; there we turn up a fragment of old 
John of Gaunt ; elsewhere we chance upon a pot of Tewks- 
bury mustard ; again we hit a bit of popular superstition, 
how Earl Douglas " runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicu- 
lar " : on the march with Falstaff, we contemplate " the 
cankers of a calm world and a long peace " ; at Clement's 
Inn we hear "the chimes at midnight"; at Master Shal- 



INTRODUCTION. 51 

low's we " eat a last year's pippin of my own grafting, with 
a dish of caraways and so forth " : now we are amidst the 
poetries of chivalry and the felicities of victory ; now amidst 
the obscure sufferings of war, where its inexorable iron hand 
enters the widow's cottage, and snatches away the land's 
humblest comforts. And so I might go on indefinitely, the 
particulars in this kind being so numerous as might well dis- 
tract the mind, yet so skilfully composed that the number 
seems not large, till by a special effort of thought one goes 
to viewing them severally. And these particulars, though so 
unnoticed or so little noticed in the detail, are nevertheless 
so ordered that they all tell in the result. How strong is the 
principle of organic unity and life pervading the whole, may 
be specially instanced in Falstaff ; whose sayings everywhere 
so fit and cleave to the circumstances, to all the oddities 
of connection and situation out of which they grow; have 
such a mixed smacking, such a various and composite relish, 
made up from all the peculiarities of the person by whom, 
the occasion wherein, and the purpose for which they are 
spoken, that they cannot be detached and set out by them- 
selves without thwarting or greatly marring their force and 
flavour. Thus in the farthest extremities of the work we feel 
the beatings of one common heart. On the whole, we may 
safely affirm with Dr. Johnson, that " perhaps no author has 
ever, in two plays, afforded so much delight." 



KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Henry the Fourth. 
HENRY, Prince of Wales, 1 his So ^ 
John of Lancaster, J 

Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. 
Sir Walter Blunt. 
Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester. 
Henry Percy, Earl of Northumber- 
land. 
Henry Percy, his Son. 
Sir Edmund Mortimer. 
Scroop, Archbishop of York. 
Sir MICHAEL, his Friend. 



Archibald, Earl of Douglas. 
Owen Glendower. 
Sir Richard Vernon. 
Sir John Falstaff. 
Pointz. Gadshill. 
Peto. Bardolph. 

Lady Percy, Wife to Hotspur. 
Lady Mortimer, Daughter to Glen- 
dower. 
Mrs. Quickly, Hostess in Eastcheap. 



Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Carriers, Travel- 
lers, and Attendants. 

Scene. — England. 



ACT I. 



Scene I. — London. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter King Henry, Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, 

and others. 

King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care, 
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, 
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils 



54 THE FIRST PART OF ACT L 

To be commenced in strands afar remote. 1 

No more the thirsty entrance 2 of this soil 

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood ; 

No more shall trenching war channel her fields, « 

Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs 

Of hostile paces : those opposed eyes, 

Which, like the meteors 3 of a troubled heaven, 

All of one nature, of one substance bred, 

Did lately meet in the intestine shock 

And furious close of civil butchery, 

Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, 

1 It scarce need be said that here the image is of Peace so scared and 
out of breath with domestic strife, that she can but make a brief pause, and 
pant forth short and broken speech of new wars to be undertaken in foreign 
lands. This play is distinctly continuous with King Richard II., at the 
close of which we have Bolingbroke avowing it as his purpose to atone for 
the death of Richard by leading out another Crusade : 

I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land, 

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand. 

And in fact he was hardly more than seated on the throne before he began 
to be so harassed with acts of rebellion and threats of invasion, that he con- 
ceived the plan of drowning the public sense of his usurpation in an enthu- 
siasm of foreign war and conquest. 

2 Of course entrance here means mouth ; for what but a mouth should 
have lips? So in Genesis, iv. n : "And now art thou cursed from the 
earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy 
hand." 

3 Meteor was used in a much more general sense than we attach to the 
word. King John, page 98, note 19. It might include the Aurora Borealis, 
which sometimes has the appearance of hostile armies engaged in battle. 
So in Paradise Lost, ii. 533-8 : 

As when, to warn proud cities, war appears 

Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush 

To battle in the clouds, before each van 

Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears, 

Till thickest legions close ; with feats of arms 

From either end of heaven the welkin burns. 



scene I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 55 

March all one way, and be no more opposed 
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies : 
The edge of war, like an ill- sheathed knife, 
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends, 
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ — 
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross 
We are impressed and engaged to fight — 
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, 4 
To chase these pagans in those holy fields 
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet 
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd 
For our advantage on the bitter cross. 
But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old, 
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go : 
Therefore we meet not now. 5 — Then let me hear 
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland, 6 
What yesternight our Council did decree 
In forwarding this dear expedience. 7 

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question, 
And many limits of the charge 8 set down 

4 Levying an army to a place is an elliptical form of expression. So in 
Gosson's School of Abuse, 1587 : " Scipio, before he levied his forces to the 
walls of Carthage, gave his soldiers the print of the city in a cake, to be de- 
voured." — Here, as often, shall has the force of will; the two being used 
indifferently. 

5 " We meet not on that question, or to consider that matter." Such is 
often tbe meaning of therefore in old English. 

6 Ralph Neville, the present Earl of Westmoreland, married for his first 
wife Joan, daughter to John of Gaunt, by Catharine Swynford, and there- 
fore half-sister to King Henry the Fourth. Cousin, in old English, bears 
much the same sense as kinsman in our time. 

7 The Poet uses expedience and expedition interchangeably : likewise, 
expedient and expeditious. By dear, the King probably means that he has 
his heart set upon it. 

8 " Limits of the charge " probably means appointments for the undertake 



$6 THE FIRST PART OF ACT I 

But yesternight : when, all athwart, there came 

A post from Wales loaden with heavy news ; 

Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer, 

Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight 

Against th' irregular and wild Glendower, 

Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken ; 

A thousand of his people butchered, 9 

Upon whose dead corpse' 10 there was such misuse, 

Such beastly, shameless transformation, 

By those Welshwomen done, as may not be 

Without much shame re-told or spoken of. 

King. It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil 
Brake off our business for the Holy Land. 

West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord ; 
For more uneven and unwelcome news 
Came from the North, and thus it did import : 
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there, 11 
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald, 
That ever- valiant and approved Scot, 
At Holmedon met ; 

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour, 
As by discharge of their artillery, 

ing. The Poet repeatedly uses to limit for to appoint; as also to appoint 
for to equip ox furnish; that is, to arrange the outfit of an army. — Question, 
in the line before, is talk or discussion. Often so. The matter was warmly 
debated. 

9 That is, " A thousand of his people being butchered." 

10 Corpse' for corpses. So we have horse' for horses, house' for houses, 
sense" for senses, &c. 

11 Rood is an old word for cross. So we have the expression, " The Duke 
that died on rood." Holy-Rood day was the 14th of September. Hotspur 
is said to have been so called, because, from the age of twelve years, when 
he first began to bear arms, his " spur was never cold," he being continually 
at war with the Scots. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 57 

And shape of likelihood, the news was told ; 
For he that brought them, 12 in the very heat 
And pride of their contention did take horse, 
Uncertain of the issue any way. 

King. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend, 
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, 
Stain'd with the variation of each soil 13 
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours ; 
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. 
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited : 
Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, 
Balk'd in their own blood, 14 did Sir Walter see 
On Holmedon's plains : of prisoners, Hotspur took 
Mordake the Earl of Fife and eldest son 
To beaten Douglas ; 15 and the Earls of Athol, 
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. 
And is not this an honourable spoil, 
A gallant prize ? ha, cousin, is it not ? 

West. Faith, 'tis a conquest for a prince to boast of. 

King. Yea, there thou makest me sad, and makest me 
sin 



12 News, and also tidings, was used indifferently as singular or plural : 
hence was and them in this instance. 

13 A most vivid expression of Sir Walter's speed and diligence. 

14 Balk'd in their own blood is heaped, or laid in heaps, in their own blood. 
A. balk was a ridge or bank of earth standing up between two furrows ; and 
to balk was to throw up the earth so as to form those heaps or banks. 

15 This reads as if the Earl of Fife were the son of Douglas, whereas in 
fact he was son to the Duke of Albany, who was then regent or governor of 
Scotland, the King, his brother, being incapable of the office. The matter 
is thus given by Holinshed, pointing and all : " Of prisoners among other 
Were these, Mordacke earle of Fife, son to the governour Archembald earle 
Dowglas, which in the fight lost one of his eies." The Poet's mistake was 
evidently caused by the omission of the comma after governour. 



58 THE FIRST PART OF aci i. 

In envy that my Lord Northumberland 

Should be the father to so blest a son, — 

A son who is the theme of honour's tongue ; 

Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant ; 

Who is sweet Fortune's minion 16 and her pride : 

Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, 

See riot and dishonour stain the brow 

Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved 

That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged 

In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, 

And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet ! 17 

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine : 

But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz, 

Of this young Percy's pride ? the prisoners, 

Which he in this adventure hath surprised, 

To his own use he keeps ; and sends me word, 

I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife. 18 

West. This is his uncle's teaching, this is Worcester, 
Malevolent to you in all aspects ; 19 

16 Minion is darling, favourite, or pet ; a frequent usage. 

17 Among the naughty pranks which the ancient " night-tripping fairies" 
were supposed to enact, was that of stealing choice babies out of their cra- 
dles, and leaving inferior specimens in their stead. Shakespeare has several 
allusions to the roguish practice, as many other old writers also have. See 
A Midsummer-Night's Dream, page 40, note 5. 

18 Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the Earl of Fife. 
By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemp- 
tion did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him to himself to release or 
ransom at his pleasure. But Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife ; for, he 
being a prince of the royal blood, Henry might justly claim him, by his 
acknowledged military prerogative. 

19 An astrological allusion. Worcester is represented as a malignant 
star that influenced the conduct of Hotspur. And the effect of planetary 
predominance is implied, which was held to be irresistible. So in Daniel's 
fine poem " To the Countess of Cumberland " : " Where all th' aspects of 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 59 

Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up 
The crest 20 of youth against your dignity. 

King. But I have sent for him to answer this ; 
And for this cause awhile we must neglect 
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem. 
Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we 
Will hold at Windsor ; so inform the lords : 
But come yourself with speed to us again ; 
For more is to be said and to be done 
Than out of anger can be uttered. 21 

West. I will, my liege. \_Exeunt 

Scene II. — The Same. An Apartment of Prince Henry's. 
Enter Prince Henry and Falstaff. 

Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad ? 

Prince. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, 
and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches 
after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly 
which thou wouldst truly know. 1 What a devil hast thou to 
do with the time of the day ? unless hours were cups of sackj 

misery predominate ; whose strong effects are such as he must bear, being 
powerless to redress." See, also, The Winter's Tale, page 47, note 23. 

20 Crest is, properly, the topmost part of a helmet; and helmets were 
often surmounted with armorial ensigns, and adorned with costly feathers 
or plumes. A hawk, or a cock, was said to prune himself when he picked 
off the loose feathers, and smoothed the rest ; all from personal pride, of 
course. 

21 The King probably means that he must not give the reins to his 
tongue while his mind is in such a state of perturbation. That he should 
thus keep his lips close when he is in danger of speaking indecorously, is a 
fine trait in his character. 

1 Implying, apparently, that he should ask only for the time of the night 
as that is the time for all his pleasures and pursuits. 



60 THE FIRST PART OF ACT I. 

and minutes capons, and the blessed Sun himself a fair hot 
wench in flame-coloured taffeta, 2 I see no reason why thou 
shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. 

Fal. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal ; for we that 
take purses go by the Moon and the seven stars, 3 and not by 
Phoebus, — he, that wandering knight so fair.* And I pr'y- 
thee, sweet wag, when thou art king, — as, God save thy 
Grace, — Majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have 
none, — 

Prince. What, none? 

Fal. No, by my troth ; not so much as will serve to be 
prologue to an egg and butter. 5 

Prince. Well, how then ? come, roundly, roundly. 

Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not 
us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of 
the day's beauty : 6 let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of 
the shade, minions of the Moon ; and let men say we be men 
of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our 
noble and chaste mistress the Moon, under whose counte- 
nance we steal. 



2 Taffeta was a rich silk of a wavy lustre. So that a handsome woman 
blazing in a dress of fiame-coloured taffeta would be a pretty brilliant and 
captivating phenomenon. 

3 The seven stars are, probably, the constellation Pleiades. 

4 Falstaff, with great propriety, according to the old astronomy, calls the Sun 
a wandering knight. The words probably are from some forgotten ballad. 

5 Not so much grace as will serve for saying grace before meat. Eggs 
and butter appear to have been a favourite lunch. — Roundly, in the next 
line, is speak plainly, or bluntly. 

6 Falstaff is an inveterate player upon words, as here between night and 
knight, beauty and booty. A squire of the body originally meant an attendant 
on a knight. — As to Diana's foresters, Hall the chronicler tells of a pageant 
exhibited in the reign of Henry VIII., wherein were certain persons called 
Diana's knights. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 6 1 

Prince. Thou say'st well, and it holds well too; for the 
fortune of us that are the Moon's men doth ebb and flow 
like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the Moon. As, 
for proof, now : A purse of gold most resolutely snatch'd 
on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday 
morning ; got with swearing Lay by, and spent with crying 
Bring in; 1 now in as low an ebb as the foot of the lad- 
der, and by-and-by in as high a flow as the ridge of the 
gallows. 8 

Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad. And is not my 
hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench ? 

Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. 9 
And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? 10 



7 The meaning and application of the phrase Lay by, as here used, are 
somewhat in doubt. It was in use as a nautical term for to slacken sail. So 
in King Henry VIII. , iii. i : " Even the billows of the sea hung their heads, 
and then lay by "; that is, sank to rest. Some think that in the text it is a 
phrase addressed by highwaymen to the persons they have waylaid, like 
" Stand ! and deliver." But I believe no clear authority is brought for that 
explanation. So I suspect it was a phrase used by highwaymen to each 
other when watching for their game; and meant be still, or stand close; 
something like the phrase of our time, " lie low and keep dark." So stand 
close occurs twice in ii. 2, of this play. — Bring in was the call of revellers to 
the waiters to bring in more wine. 

8 Referring to the liability which thieves incurred of being promoted to 
the high place of hanging. 

9 Shakespeare has several allusions to the classical honey of Hybla, the 
name of a district in Sicily where the honey, celebrated by the poets for its 
superior flavour, was found. So in Julius Ccesar, v. 1 : " But, for your 
words, they rob the Hybla bees, and leave them honeyless." — It is certain 
that in this play, as originally written, Falstaff bore the name of Oldcastle ; 
and " old lad of the castle " is no doubt a relic of that naming. 

10 A buff jerkin was a jerkin or coat made of ox-hide, and was commonly 
worn by sheriff's officers. It seems to have been called a robe of durance, 
both because of its great durability, and because it was the wearer's business 
to put debtors and criminals in durance. 



62 THE FIRST PART OF ACT I. 

Fal. How now, how now, mad wag ! what, in thy quips 
and thy quiddities? 11 what a plague have I to do with a buff 
jerkin ? 

Prince. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess 
of the tavern ? 

Fal. Well, thou hast call'd her to a reckoning many a 
time and oft. 

Prince. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part ? 

Fal. No ; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there. 

Prince. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would 
stretch ; and where it would not, I have used my credit. 

Fal. Yea, and so used it, that, were it not here apparent 
that thou art heir-apparent 12 — But, I pr'ythee, sweet wag, 
shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art 
king? and resolution thus fobb'd as it is with the rusty curb 
of old father antic the law? 13 Do not thou, when thou art 
king, hang a thief. 

Prince. No ; thou shalt. 

Fal. Shall I ? O rare ! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge. 

Prince. Thou judgest false already : I mean, thou shalt have 
the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare hangman. 

Fal. Well, Hal, well ; and in some sort it jumps 14 with 
my humour ; as well as waiting in the Court, I can tell you. 

11 Quips and quiddities are gibes and subtile allusions or sly retorts. 
Strictly speaking, a quiddity is a nice distinction. 

12 An intimation that, but for his prospect of the throne, the Prince would 
be credit-broken. To express the thought in full, were a greater liberty than 
Falstaff dares to take with the Prince. 

13 Antic, as the word is here used, means buffoon. Speaking of the law 
as a venerable buffoon is a right Falstaffian stroke of humour. In Richard 
II., ii. 2, the word is so applied to Death : " Within the hollow crown Death 
keeps his Court ; and there the antic sits, scoffing his state, and grinning at 
his pomp." — Fobb'd is tricked or cheated. 

14 Jumps is accords or agrees. See The Merchant, page 129, note 5. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 63 

Prince. For obtaining of suits ? 

Fal. Yea, for obtaining of suits, 15 whereof the hangman 
hath no lean wardrobe. 'Sblood, 16 I am as melancholy as a 
gib-cat or a lugg'd bear. 17 

Prince. Or an old lion, or a lover's lute. 

Fal. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe. 18 

Prince. What say'st thou to a hare, or the melancholy of 
Moor-ditch? 19 

Fal. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art, in- 
deed, the most comparative, 20 rascalliest, sweet young prince, 



15 There is a quibble here between suits in the sense of petitions and the 
suits of clothes, which the hangman inherited from those whom he executed. 
Waiting in the Court for the granting of one's petitions used to be as tedious 
as " the law's delay." 

16 As a sort of compromise between reverence and profanity, various 
oaths became so curtailed and disguised in the use, that their original mean- 
ing was almost lost. Among these, 'Sblood and Zounds were very common, 
the original forms being " God's blood " and " God's wounds." 'Slight, 
" God's light," was another. 

17 A gib-cat is a male cat. Tom cat is now the usual term. Ray has this 
proverbial phrase, " as melancholy as a gibd cat." In Sherwood's English 
and French Dictionary we have " a gibbe or old male cat." — A lugg'd bear 
was probably a bear made cross by having his ears pulled or plucked. 

18 Lincolnshire bagpipes was proverbial. The allusion, if there be any, is 
yet unexplained. 

19 The hare seems to have been proverbial as a type of melancholy. In 
illustration of the text, Staunton aptly quotes from Turberville's Book on 
Hunting and Falconry : "The hare first taught us the use of the hearbe 
called wyld Succory, which is very excellent for those which are disposed to 
be melancholicke : shee herselfe is one of the most melancholicke beasts that 
is, and to heale her own infirmitie she goeth commonly to sit under that 
hearbe." — Moorditch, a part of the ditch surrounding the city of London, 
opened to an unwholesome morass, and therefore had an air of melan- 
choly. So in Taylor's Pennylesse Pilgrimage, 1618 : " My body being tired 
with travel, and my mind attired with moody muddy, Moore-ditch melan- 
choly!' 

20 Comparative is here used for one who is fond of making comparisons. 



64 THE FIRST PART OF ACT I. 

— But, Hal, I pr'ythee, trouble me no more with vanity. I 
would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good 
names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council rated 
me the other day in the street about you, sir, — but I mark'd 
him not ; and yet he talk'd very wisely, — but I regarded him 
not ; and yet he talk'd wisely, and in the street too. 

Prince. Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the 
streets, and no man regards it. 

Fal. O, thou hast damnable iteration, 21 and art, indeed, 
able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon 
me, Hal ; God forgive thee for it ! Before I knew thee, Hal, 
I knew nothing ; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, 
little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this 
life, and I will give it over ; by the Lord, an I do not, I am 
a villain : I'll be damn'd for never a king's son in Christen- 
dom. 

Prince. Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack ? 

Fal. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad ; I'll make one : an I 
do not, call me villain, and baffle me. 22 

Prince. I see a good amendment of life in thee, — from 
praying to purse-taking. 

21 That is, a naughty trick of repetition, referring, no doubt, to what the 
Prince keeps doing throughout this scene ; namely, iterating, retorting, and 
distorting Falstaff' s words. 

22 To baffle is to use contemptuously, or treat with ignominy ; to un- 
knight. It was originally a punishment of infamy inflicted on recreant 
knights, one part of which was hanging them up by the heels. The degrading 
of a false knight is thus set forth in The Faerie Queene, v. 3, 37, showing how 
3ir Artegall's iron page, Talus, served Braggadochio : 

First he his beard did shave, and fowly shent ; 

Then from him reft his sheld, and it renverst, 

And blotted out his armes with falsehood blent ; 

And himselfe baffuld, and his armes unherst ; 

And broke his sword in twaine, and all his armour sperst. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 6$ 

Fal. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal ; 'tis no sin for a 
man to labour in his vocation. 

Enter Pointz. 

— Pointz ! — Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a 
match. 23 O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in 
Hell were hot enough for him ? This is the most omnipo- 
tent villain that ever cried Stand 7 to a true man. 

Prince. Good morrow, Ned. 

Pointz. Good morrow, sweet Hal. — What says Monsieur 
Remorse ? what says Sir John Sack-and-sugar ? 24 Jack, how 
agrees the Devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest 
him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a cold 
capon's leg? 

Prince. Sir John stands to his word, — the Devil shall 
have his bargain ; for he was never yet a breaker of prov- 
erbs, — he will give the Devil his due. 

Pointz. Then art thou damn'd for keeping thy word with 
the Devil. 

Prince. Else he had been damn'd for cozening the Devil. 

Pointz. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by 

23 Setting a match appears to have been one of the technicalities of thiev- 
ery. Thus in Ratsey's Ghost, a tract printed about 1606 : " I have been 
many times beholding to tapsters and chamberlains for directions and set- 
ting 0/ matches." 

24 A deal of learned ink has been shed in discussing what Sir John's fa- 
vourite beverage might be. Nares has pretty much proved it to have been 
the Spanish wine now called Sherry. So in Blount's Glossographia : "Sherry 
sack, so called from Xeres, a town of Corduba in Spain, where that kind of 
sack is made." And in Markham's English Housewife : "Your best sacks 
are of Seres in Spaine." And indeed Falstaff expressly calls it sherris-sack. 
The latter part of the name, sack, is thought to have come from its being a 
dry wine, vin sec ; and it was formerly written seek. 



66 THE FIRST PART OF ACT I. 

four o'clock, early at Gads-hill ! 25 there are pilgrims going 
to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to Lon- 
don with fat purses : I have visards for you all ; you have 
horses for yourselves : Gadshill lies to-night in Rochester : 
I have bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap : we 
may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff 
your purses full of crowns ; if you will not, tarry at home 
and be hang'd. 

Fal. Hear ye, Yedward ; 26 if I tarry at home and go not, 
I'll hang you for going. 

Pointz. You will, chops ? 

Fal. Hal, wilt thou make one ? 

Prince. Who, I rob ? I a thief? not I, by my faith. 

Fal. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellow- 
ship in thee, nor thou earnest not of the blood royal, if thou 
darest not stand for ten shillings. 27 

Prince. Well, then, once in my days I'll be a madcap. 
gFal. Why, that's well said. 

Prince. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home. 

Fal. By the Lord, I'll be a traitor, then, when thou art 
king. 

Prince. I care not. 

Pointz. Sir John, I pr'ythee, leave the Prince and me 
alone : I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure, 
that he shall go. 

Fal. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion, and 
him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move, 



25 Gads-hill was a wooded place on the road from London to Rochester, 
much noted as a resort of highwaymen. 

26 Yedward was a familiar corruption of Edward. 

27 Falstaff is quibbling on the word royal. The real or royal was of the 
value of ten shillings. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 67 

and what he hears may be believed, that the true Prince 
may, for recreation-sake, prove a false thief; for the poor 
abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell : you shall 
find me in Eastcheap. 

Prince. Farewell, thou latter Spring ! farewell, All-hallown 
Summer ! 28 [Exit Falstaff. 

Pointz. Now, my good sweet honey-lord, ride with us 
to-morrow : I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage 
alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill, shall rob 
those men that we have already waylaid : yourself and I will 
not be there ; and when they have the booty, if you and I 
do not rob them, cut this head from my shoulders. 

Prince. But how shall we part with them in setting 
forth? 

Pointz. Why, we will set forth before or after them, and 
appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure 
to fail ; and then will they adventure upon the exploit them- 
selves ; which they shall have no sooner achieved but we'll 
set upon them. 

Prince. Ay, but 'tis like that they will know us by our 
horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, 29 to 
be ourselves. 

Pointz. Tut ! our horses they shall not see, — I'll tie them 
in the wood; our visards we will change, after we leave 
them ; and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, 30 
to immask our noted outward garments. 



28 All-hallown , or All hallows, is All Saints' Day, the first of November. 
Nothing could more happily express the character of Falstaff as sowing 
wild oats in his old age, or as carrying on the May and June of life to the 
verge of Winter. 

29 Appointment for equipment or outfit. See page 55, note 8. 

30 This passage shows that sirrah was sometimes used merely in a play 



68 THE FIRST PART OF ACT I. 

Prince. But I doubt 31 they will be too hard for us. 

Pointz. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true- 
bred cowards as ever turn'd back ; and for the third, if he 
fight longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The 
virtue of this jest will be, the incomprehensible lies that this 
same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper : how 
thirty, at least, he fought with ; what wards, 32 what blows, 
what extremities he endured ; and in the reproof 33 of this 
lies the jest. 

Prince. Well, I'll go with thee : provide us all things 
necessary, and meet me to-night in Eastcheap; there I'll 
sup. Farewell. 

Pointz. Farewell, my lord. [Exit. 

Prince. I know you all, and will awhile uphold 
The unyoked 34 humour of your idleness : 
Yet herein will I imitate the Sun, 
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds 
To smother-up his beauty from the world, 
That, when he please again to be himself, 
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at, 
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists 
And vapours that did seem to strangle him. 
If all the year were playing holidays, 
To sport would be as tedious as to work ; 
But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come, 
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. 

ful, familiar way, without implying any lack of respect. — For the nonce sig- 
nified for the occasion, for the once. 

31 Doubt in the sense of fear or suspect; a frequent usage. 

32 Wards is guards ; that is, modes or postures of defence. 

33 Reproof "for refutation or disproof To refute, to refell, to disallow, are 
old meanings of to refute. See Much Ado, page 65, note 14. 

34 Unyoked is untamed; like wild steers not broken into work. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 69 

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off, 

And pay the debt I never promised, 

By how much better than my word I am, 

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes ; 35 

And, like bright metal on a sullen 36 ground, 

My reformation, glittering o'er my fault, 

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes 

Than that which hath no foil to set it off. 

I'll so offend, to 37 make offence a skill 3 

Redeeming time, when men think least I will. [Exit. 



Scene III. — The Same. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hot- 
spur, Sir Walter Blunt, and others. 

King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, 
Unapt to stir at these indignities, 
As you have found me ; for, accordingly, 
You tread upon my patience : but be sure 
I will from henceforth rather be myself, 
Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition ; 1 

35 Hopes for expectations ; no uncommon use of the word even now. 

36 Sullen in it£ old sense of dark or black. See Richard II., page 161, 
note 6. ' 

37 In such cases, the old poets often omit as after so. — Here Johnson 
notes as follows : " This speech is very artfully introduced, to keep the Prince 
from appearing vile in the opinion of the audience : it prepares them for his 
future reformation ; and, what is yet more valuable, exhibits a natural pic- 
ture of a great mind offering excuses to itself, and palliating those follies 
which it can neither justify nor forsake." 

1 The King means that he will rather be what his office requires than 
what his natural disposition prompts him to be. The use of condition for 
temper or disposition was exceedingly common. 



JO THE FIRST PART OF ACT I. 

Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, 

And therefore lost that title of respect 

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud. 

Wor. Our House, my sovereign liege, little deserves 
The scourge of greatness to be used on it ; 
And that same greatness too which our own hands 
Have holp to make so portly. 2 

North. My good lord, — 

King. Worcester, get thee gone ; for I do see 
Danger and disobedience in thine eye : 
O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory, 
And majesty might never yet endure 
The moody frontier 3 of a servant brow. 
You have good leave to leave us : when we need 
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. \_Exit Worces. 
— \To North.] You were about to speak. 

North. Yea, my good lord, 

Those prisoners in your Highness' name demanded, 
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, 
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied 
As is deliver 'd to your Majesty : 
Either envy, therefore, or misprision 4 
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son. 

Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners. 
But, I remember, when the fight was done, 

2 Holp and holpen are the old preterites of the verb to help.— Portly 'here 
has the sense of stately or imposing. So in The Merchant, iii. 2 : " The 
magnificoes of greatest port'' 

3 Frontier seems to be here used very much in the sense of confronting 
or outfacing. The image is of a threatening or defiant fortress. 

4 Envy is doubtless used here for malice, the sense it more commonly 
bears in Shakespeare. — Misprision is misprising ox prising amiss; mis- 
taking. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 7 1 

When I was dry with rage and Extreme toil, 

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, 

Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd, 

Fresh as a bridegroom ; and his chin new reap'd 

Show'd like a stubble -land 5 at harvest- home : 

He was perfumed like a milliner ; 

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held 

A pouncet-box, 6 which ever and anon 

He gave his' nose, and took't away again ; 

Who therewith angry, when it next came there, 

Took it in snuff : 7 and still he smiled and talk'd ; 

And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, 

He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, 

To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse 

Betwixt the wind and his nobility. 

With many holiday and lady terms 

He question'd me ; among the rest, demanded 

My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf. 

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, 

Out of my grief and my impatience 

To be so pester' d with a popinjay, 

Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what, — 

He should, or he should not ; for't made me mad 



5 The courtier's beard, according to the fashion in the Poet's time, would 
not be closely shaved, but shorn or trimmed, and would therefore show like 
a stubble-land new-reap'd. — Millinery work was commonly done by men in 
Shakespeare's time ; women's tailors, as they were called. 

6 A pouncet-box was a box perforated with small holes, for carrying musk, 
or other perfumes then in fashion. Warburton says that " various aromatic 
powders were thus used in snuff, long before tobacco was." 

7 Took it in snuff means no more than snuffed it up : but there is a quib- 
ble on the phrase, which was equivalent to taking huff at it, in familiar 
modern speech ; to be angry, to take offence. 



^2 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT L 



To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, 

i\nd talk so like a waiting- gentlewoman 

Of guns and drums and wounds, — God save the mark ! — 

And telling me the sovereign'st thing on Earth 

Was parmaceti for an inward bruise ; 

And that it was great pity, so it was, 

This villainous salt-petre should be digg'd 

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 

Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd 

So cowardly ; and, but for these vile guns, 

He would himself have been a soldier. 

This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, 

I answer d indirectly, as I said ; 

And I beseech you, let not his report 

Come current for an accusation 

Betwixt my love and your high Majesty. 

Blunt. The circumstance consider'd, good my lord ? 
Whatever Harry Percy then had said 
To such a person, and in such a place, 
At such a time, with all the rest re-told, 
May reasonably die, and never rise 
To do him wrong, or any way impeach 
What then he said, so he unsay it now. 

King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners, 
But with proviso and exception, 
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight 
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer ; 
Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd 
The lives of those that he did lead to fight 
Against the great magician, damn'd Glendower, 
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March 



SCENE III. 



KING HENRY THE FOURTH. f$ 



Hath lately married. 8 Shall our coffers, then, 
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home? 
Shall we buy treason ? and indent with fears 9 
When they have lost and forfeited themselves ? 
No, on the barren mountains let him starve ; 
For I shall never hold that man my friend 
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost 
To ransom home revolted Mortimer. 

Hot. Revolted Mortimer ! 
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, 
But by the chance of war : to prove that true 
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, 
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, 
When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank, 
In single opposition, hand to hand, 
He did confound 10 the best part of an hour 
In changing hardiment with great Glendower. 
Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, 

8 The Mortimer, who had been sent into Wales, was not the Earl of 
March, but Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the Earl, and therefore perhaps 
distrusted by the King, as the natural protector of his nephew. At this time 
the Earl of March was but about ten years old, and was held in safe keeping 
at Windsor. The mistake runs through Holinshed's chapter on the reign 
of Henry IV. 

9 To indent with is to make a covenant or compact with any one : here 
it seems to bear the sense of to compromise or make terms. — Shakespeare 
sometimes uses subject and object interchangeably ; as in Macbeth, i. 3 : 
" Present fears are less than horrible imaginings " ; where fears is put for 
dangers, that is, the things or persons feared. And so in the text fears ap- 
parently means objects of fear. So that the meaning of the passage in the 
text evidently is, " Shall we buy off traitors, or make terms with persons 
once dangerous indeed, but who have now forfeited and lost whatsoever 
rendered them formidable ? " 

10 Shakespeare again uses confound for spending or consuming time in 
Coriolanus, i. 6 : " How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour ? " 



74 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT L 



Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood ; 
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, 
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, 
And hid his crisp head 11 in the hollow bank 
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants. 
Never did base and rotten policy 
Colour her working with such deadly wounds ; 
Nor never could the noble Mortimer 
Receive so many, and all willingly : 
Then let him not be slander'd with revolt. 

King. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him ; 
He never did encounter with Glendower : 
I tell thee, 

He durst as well have met the Devil alone 
As Owen Glendower for an enemy. 
Art not ashamed ? But, sirrah, from henceforth 
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer : 
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, 
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me 
As will displease you. — My Lord Northumberland, 
We license your departure with your son. — 
Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it. 

\_Exeunt King Henry, Blunt, and train. 

Hot. An if the Devil come and roar for them, 
I will not send them : I will after straight, 
And tell him so ; for I will ease my heart, 



11 The same image occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's Loyal Subject . 
" The Volga trembled at his terror, and hid his seven curled heads." Like- 
wise in one of Jonson's Masques : " The rivers run as smoothed by his hand, 
only their heads are crisped by his stroke." — As Johnson notes, " Severn is 
here not the flood, but the tutelary power of the flood, who was affrighted, 
and hid his head in the hollow bank." 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 75 

Although it be with hazard of my head. 

North. What, drunk with choler ? stay, and pause awhile : 
Here comes your uncle. 

Re-enter Worcester. 

Hot. Speak of Mortimer ! 

Zounds, I will speak of him ; and let my soul 
Want mercy, if I do not join with him : 
Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins, 
And shed my dear blood drop by drop i' the dust, 
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer 
As high i' the air as this unthankful King, 
As this ingrate and canker'd 12 Bolingbroke. 

North. \To Worcester.] Brother, the King hath made 
your nephew mad. 

Wor. Who struck this heat up after I was gone ? 

Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners ; 
And when I urged the ransom once again 
Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale, 
And on my face he turn'd an eye of death, 
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer. 

Wor. I cannot blame him : was he not proclaim'd 
By Richard that is dead the next of blood ? 13 

12 Canker, both verb and noun, in one of its senses is used of any thing that 
corrodes or consumes, or that has the virulent or malignant qualities of a 
cancer. Such is doubtless the meaning here. See The Tempest, page 127, 
note 41. 

13 Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, was declared heir-apparent to the 
crown in 1385, but was killed in Ireland in 1398. His mother was Philippa, 
the only child of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was the second son of Ed- 
ward the Third. In the strict order of succession, the crown was due to 
Edmund Mortimer, the son of Roger, who was accordingly proclaimed 
heir-apparent by Richard the Second in 1399, just before starting on his ex- 



*j6 THE FIRST PART OF ACT L 

North. He was ; I heard the proclamation : 
And then it was when the unhappy King — 
Whose wrongs in us 14 God pardon ! — did set forth 
Upon his Irish expedition ; 
From whence he intercepted did return 
To be deposed, and shortly murdered. 

Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide 
mouth 
Live scandalized and foully spoken of. 

Hot. But, soft ! I pray you ; did King Richard then 
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer 
Heir to the crown ? 

North. He did ; myself did hear it. 

Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King, 
That wish'd him on the barren mountains starved. 
But shall it be, that you, that set the crown 
Upon the head of this forgetful man, 
And for his sake wear the detested blot 
Of murderous subornation, — shall it be, 
That you a world of curses undergo, 
Being the agents, or base second means, 
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather? — 
O, pardon me, that I descend so low, 
To show the line and the predicament 
Wherein you range under this subtle King ; — 
Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days, 
Or fill up chronicles in time to come, 
That men of your nobility and power 

pedition to Ireland. He was not Lady Percy's brother, but her nephew. 
See note 8. 

14 That is, " the wrongs which we inflicted on him " ; the Percys having 
been the chief supporters of Bolingbroke in his usurpation. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 77 

Did gage 15 them both in an unjust behalf, — 
As both of you, God pardon it ! have done, — 
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, 
And plant this thorn, this canker, 16 Bolingbroke ? 
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken, 
That you are fool'd, discarded, and shook off 
By him for whom these shames ye underwent? 
No ! yet time serves, wherein you may redeem 
Your banish'd honours, and restore yourselves 
Into the good thoughts of the world again ; 
Revenge the jeering and disdain'd 17 contempt 
Of this proud King, who studies day and night 
To answer all the debt he owes to you 
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths : 
Therefore, I say, — 

Wor. Peace, cousin, say no more : 

And now I will unclasp a secret book, 
And to your quick-conceiving discontent 
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous ; 
As full of peril and adventurous spirit 
As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud 
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear. 

Hot. If we fall in, good night, or sink or swim ! 
Send danger from the east unto the west, 
So honour cross it from the north to south, 

15 To gage is to pledge, or commit. Engaged occurs afterwards in much 
the same sense. Both refers to nobility and power. See The Merchant, 
page 86, note 31. 

16 The canker here meant is the dog-rose ; the rose of the hedge, not of 
the garden. So, in Much Ado, i. 3, the sullen John says of Don Pedro, " I 
had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his Grace." 

17 Disdain'd for disdainful or disdaining ; an instance of the indiscrimi- 
nate use of active and passive forms. 



yS THE FIRST PART OF ACT I 

And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs 
To rouse a lion than to start 18 a hare ! 

North. Imagination of some great exploit 
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience. 

Hot. By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap, 
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced Moon ; 
Or dive into the bottom of the deep, 
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, 
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks ; 
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear 
Without corrival 19 all her dignities : 
But out upon this half-faced fellowship ! 

Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here, 
But not the form of what he should attend. 20 — 
Good cousin, give me audience for a while. 

Hot. I cry you mercy. 21 

Wor. Those same noble Scots 

That are your prisoners, — 

Hot. I'll keep them all ; 

By God, he shall not have a Scot of them ; 
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not : 
I'll keep them, by this hand. 

18 To rouse and to start are instances of the infinitive used gerundively, 
and so are equivalent to in rousing and in starting. By lion Hotspur 
means the King. 

19 Corrival for rival simply, and in the sense of partner or associate. So 
in Hamlet, i. i : " If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the rivals of my 
watch, bid them make haste." — "Half-faced fellowship" is the same, I take 
it, as what we might call half-hearted friendship. It is Hotspur's way of 
charging that the King is not true to him, or does not rate his services so 
highly as he thinks they deserve. 

20 His imagination so swarms with ideal shapes and images, that it 
whirls him away from the business in hand. 

21 " I cry you mercy " is the old phrase for " I ask your pardon." 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 79 

Wor. You start away, 

And lend no ear unto my purposes. 
Those prisoners you shall keep ; — 

Hot. Nay, I will ; that's flat.' 

He said he would not ransom Mortimer ; 
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer ; 
But I will find him when he lies asleep, 
And in his ear I'll holla Mortimer / 
Nay, 

I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak 
Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him, 
To keep his anger still in motion. 

Wor. Hear you, cousin ; a word. 

Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy, 22 
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke : 
And that same sword-and-buckler 23 Prince of Wales, 
But that I think his father loves him not, 
And would be glad he met with some mischance, 
I'd have him poison'd with a pot of ale. 24 

JVor. Farewell, kinsman : I will talk to you 
When you are better temper'd to attend. 

North. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool 
Art thou, to break into this woman's mood, 
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own ! 

22 To refuse, to disclaim, to renounce, to forsake are among the old 
senses of to defy. See King -John, page 93, note 4. 

23 Upon the introduction of the rapier and dagger, the sword and buckler 
fell into desuetude among the higher classes, and were accounted fitting 
weapons for the vulgar only, such as Hotspur implies were the associates 
of the Prince. — STAUNTON. 

24 Hotspur is here speaking out of his anger and impatience : not that 
he could seriously think of doing what he says ; for he is the soul of hon- 
our, and incapable of any thing mean. 



80 THE FIRST PART OF ACT I. 

Hot. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourged with rods, 
Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear 
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. 25 
In Richard's time, — what do ye call the place ? — 
A plague upon't ! — it is in Glostershire ; — 
'Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept, 26 
His uncle York ; — where I first bow'd my knee 
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke ; — 
When you and he came back from Ravenspurg. 

North. At Berkley- castle. 

Hot. You say true : — 
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy 27 
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me ! 
Look, when his infant fortune came to age, 
And, Gentle Harry Percy, and, kind cousin, — 
O, the Devil take such cozeners ! 28 — God forgive me ! — 
Good uncle, tell your tale ; for I have done. 

Wor. Nay, if you have not, to't again ; 
We'll stay your leisure. 

Hot. I have done, i'faith. 

Wor. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners. 
Deliver them up without their ransom straight, 

25 Henry Plantagenet, the King of this play, was surnamed Bolingbroke 
from a castle of that name in Lincolnshire, where he was born. In like 
manner, his father, John of Gaunt, was so called from the place of his birth, 
which was the city of Ghent in Flanders. 

26 Kept for dwelt or lived. So in The Merchant, iii. 3 : "It is the most 
impenetrable cur that ever kept with men." 

27 Candy is sugar; and "candy deal of courtesy" is deal of sugared 
courtesy. So in Hamlet, iii. 2 : " Let the candied tongue lick absurd 
pomp." 

28 To cozen is to cheat, to swindle. Hotspur is snapping off a pun or play 
between cousin and cozener. So in King Richard III., iv. 4 : " Cousins, 
indeed ; and by their uncle cozen' d of kingdom, kindred, freedom, life." 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 8 1 

And make the Douglas' son your only mean 

For powers in Scotland ; which, for divers reasons 

Which I shall send you written, be assured, 

Will easily be granted. — \To North.] You, my lord, 

Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd, 

Shall secretly into the bosom creep 

Of that same noble prelate, well beloved, 

Th' Archbishop. 

Hot. Of York, is't not? 

Wor. True ; who bears hard 

His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop. 
I speak not this in estimation, 29 
As what I think might be, but what I know 
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down, 
And only stays but to behold the face 
Of that occasion that shall bring it on. 

Hot. I smell't : upon my life, it will do well. 

North. Before the game's a-foot, thou still lett'st slip. 30 

Hot. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot : — 
And then the power of Scotland and of York, 
To join with Mortimer, ha? 

Wor. And so they shall. 

Hot. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd. 

Wor. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed, 
To save our heads by raising of a head ; 31 
For, bear ourselves as even as we can, 



29 Estimation in the sense of conjecture or inference. 

30 This phrase is taken from hunting. To let slip is to let loose the hounds 
when the game is ready for the chase. Unless the fox is a-foot, or out of 
his hole, the hunters cannot get at him. 

31 That is, save their heads by making prompt headway in resistance. 
The use of head for army was common. 



82 THE FIRST PART OF ACT i. 

The King will always think him in our debt, 
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied, 
Till he hath found a time to pay us home : 32 
And see already how he doth begin 
To make us strangers to his looks of love. 

Hot. He does, he does : we'll be revenged on him. 

Wor. Cousin, 33 farewell : no further go in this 
Than I by letters shall direct your course. 
When time is ripe, — which will be suddenly, — 
I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer ; 
Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once, 
As I will fashion it, shall happily meet, 
To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, 
Which now we hold at much uncertainty. 

North. Farewell, good brother : we shall thrive, I trust. 

Hot. Uncle, adieu : O, let the hours be short, 
Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport ! 

\_Exeunt. 

32 To pay home is to pay, that is, punish, thoroughly, or to the uttermost. 
So in The Tempest, v. i : "I will pay thy graces home both in word and 
deed " ; where, however, pay is reward. 

33 Cousin was a common term for nephew, niece, grandchild, and what 
we mean by the word. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 83 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — Rochester. An Inn- Yard. 
Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand. 

1 Car. Heigh-ho ! an't be not four by the day, I'll be 
hang'd : Charles' wain 1 is over the new chimney, and yet our 
horse' not pack'd. — What, ostler ! 

Ost. [Within.] Anon, anon. 

1 Car. I pr'ythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few 

flocks in the point ; the poor jade is wrung in the withers 

out of all cess. 2 

Enter another Carrier. 

2 Car. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, 3 and 
that is the next way to give poor jades the bots : this house 
is turned upside down since Robin ostler died. 

1 Car. Poor fellow ! never joyed since the price of oats 
rose ; 4 it was the death of him. 

1 Charles' Wain was the vulgar name for the constellation called the 
Great Bear. It is a corruption of Chorles' or Churl's wain. 

2 The withers of a horse is the ridge between the shoulder bones at the 
bottom of the neck, right under the point of the saddle. Wrung 1 as thus 
used is the same as gall 'd. So in Hamlet; " Let the gall' d jade wince, our 
withers are unwrung." — Flocks are flakes or locks of wool. — Cess is an old 
word for tax or subsidy ; the original of assess. When an assessment was 
exorbitant, it was said to be out of all cess ; excessive. The Beggars' Bush 
of B. and F. : " When the subsidy's increased, we are not a penny cess'd." 

3 Dank is moist, damp. The dog was probably as much overworked in 
comparisons three centuries ago as he is now. — " The next way " is the 
nearest way. — Bots is worms, a disease that horses sometimes die of. 

4 The price of grain was very high in 1596 ; which may have put Shake- 
speare upon making poor Robin thus die of one idea. 



84 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II. 

2 Car. I think this be the most villainous house in all 
London road for fleas : I am stung like a tench. 5 

1 Car. Like a tench ! by the Mass, there is ne'er a king 
in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since 
the first cock, — What, ostler ! come away and be hang'd ; 
come away. 6 

2 Car. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of gin- 
ger, to be delivered as far as Charing-cross. 7 

1 Car. 'Odsbody, 8 the turkeys in my pannier are quite 
starved. 9 — What, ostler ! A plague on thee ! hast thou never 
an eye in thy head? canst not hear? An 'twere not as good 
a deed as drink to break the pate of thee, I am a very villain. 
Come, and be hang'd : hast no faith in thee ? 

Enter Gadshill. 

Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock? 

1 Car. I think it be two o'clock. 10 

Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding 
in the stable. 

1 Car. Nay, soft, I pray ye ; I know a trick worth two 
of that, i'faith. 

Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thine. 

5 Some fresh-water fish are at certain seasons infested with a sort of lice, 
and so might be said to be stung. 

6 Come away, is come along, or come, simply. Repeatedly so. 

' A raze of ginger is said to have been a term for a package of ginger ; 
how large does not appear : not to be confounded with race, a root. — Char- 
ing-cross was an ancient shrine, said to have been erected in memory of 
Eleanor, Queen of Edward the First. Though the spot is now in the heart 
of London, three centuries ago it was in the outskirts of the city. 

8 Another disguised oath, whittled down from God's body. 

9 Turkeys were not brought into England until the reign of Henry VIII. 

10 The Carrier has just said, " An't be not four by the day, I'll be hang'd." 
Probably he suspects Gadshill, and tries to mislead him. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 85 

2 Car. Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, 
quoth a? marry, I'll see thee hang'd first. 

Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to 
London ? 

2 Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I war- 
rant thee. — Come, neighbour Muggs, we'll call up the gen- 
tlemen : they will along with company, for they have great 
charge. \_Exeunt Carriers. 

Gads. What, ho ! chamberlain ! 

Cham. [ Within.'] At hand, quoth pick-purse. 11 

Gads. That's even as fair as — at hand, quoth the cham- 
berlain ; for thou variest no more from picking of purses than 
giving direction doth from labouring; thou lay'st the plot 

how. 12 

Enter Chamberlain. 

Cham. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current 
that I told you yesternight : there's a franklin 13 in the wild 
of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold : 
I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at sup- 
per ; a kind of auditor ; 14 one that hath abundance of charge 
too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for 
eggs and butter : they will away presently. 

11 A slang phrase of the time, often found in old plays. 

12 Chamberlain was a term applied to certain tavern officers ; probably 
much the same as bar-keeper in our time. As here represented, chamber- 
lains often concerted with highwaymen for the waylaying of travellers, them- 
selves sharing in the profits. 

13 A freeholder or yeoman, a man above a vassal or villain, but not a 
gentleman. This was the Franklin of the age of Elizabeth. In earlier times 
he was a person of much more dignity. 

14 An auditor was an officer of the revenue : his " abundance of charge " 
was doubtless money belonging to the State ; as Gadshill afterwards says, 
" 'tis going to the King's exchequer." 



86 THE FIRST PART OF ACT U 

Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas' 
clerks, 15 I'll give thee this neck. 

Cham. No, I'll none of it : I pr'ythee, keep that fov the 
hangman ; for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as 
truly as a man of falsehood may. 

Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I 
hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows ; for, if I hang, old Sir 
John hangs with me, and thou know'st he's no starveling. 
Tut ! there are other Trojans that thou dreamest not of, the 
which, for sport-sake, are content to do the profession some 
grace ; that would, if matters should be look'd into, for their 
own credit-sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot 
land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these 
mad mustachio purple-hued malt-worms ; but with nobility 
and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers ; l6 such as 
can hold in, 17 such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak 
sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray : and yet, 
zwounds, I lie ; for they pray continually to their saint, the 

15 As Nicholas or Old Nick is a cant name for the Devil, so thieves are 
equivocally called St. Nicholas" clerks. 

16 A cant phrase for great ones ; the word being formed in much the 
same way as auctioneer, privateer. — Foot land-rakers were footpads, wan- 
derers on foot. — Long-staff sixpenny strikers were petty thieves, such as 
would knock a man down for a sixpence. — Purple-hued malt-worms were 
probably such as had their faces made red with drinking ale. 

17 Hold in, as here used, appears to have been a term of the chase, ap- 
plied to a pack of hounds when they all acted in concert, or pulled together 
in pursuit of the game. So that the sense of the phrase as applied to men 
would be stick by each other, or be true to each other. This interpretation 
appears to be sustained by a passage in Turberville's Booke of Hunting : 
" If they run it endways orderly and make it good, then, when they hold in 
together merrily, we say, They are in a crie." In the old language of the 
chase, a cry is a. pack; so that to be in a cry is to act as a pack in pursuit of 
the game, or to act in concert. So in Sylvester's Du Bartas, 1641 : " A era 
of hounds have here a deer in chase." See Midsummer, page 90, note 13* 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 87 

Commonwealth ; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her ; 
for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots. 18 

Cham. What, the Commonwealth their boots? will she 
hold out water in foul way ? 19 

Gads. She will, she will ; justice hath liquor'd her. 20 We 
steal as in a castle, cock-sure ; we have the receipt of fern- 
seed, — we walk invisible. 21 



18 Boot is profit or advantage ; and in such cases it was common to use 
the plural where present usage requires the singular. So we have such ex- 
pressions as " your loves " and " your pities" and "your peaces!' — I have 
never met with any printed comment on this passage that seemed to me at 
all fitting or adequate. In the preceding note I have tried to explain a part 
of it, but am not greatly satisfied with the result. Since that note was writ- 
ten, I have received the following from Mr. Joseph Crosby, which satisfies 
me better than any thing I have either found or been able to think out : 
" Gadshill uses the word pray of course in the very opposite of its meaning ; 
as we should have expected swear or curse, rather than pray. I take his 
whole speech to be a piece of braggadocio, somewhat like this : ' Have no 
fears of my companions : I am joined with none of your loose-tongued 
braggarts, but with men that can hold i-, and keep their mouths shut, if need 
be ; such as will knock a man on the head as quick as bid him stand ; and 
such as would bid a man stand as quick as they would drink ; and such as 
would drink sooner than — pray, I tell you : you think I am joking ; but, if 
it be any joke, I'm a liar ; for they do pray ; they pray continually to their 
saint, the commonwealth ; or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her,' &c." 

19 A quibble, of course, upon boots and booty. 

20 Greasing or oiling boots, to make them " hold out water in foul way," 
was called liquoring them. So in the Merry Wives, iv. 5 : " They would 
melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me." 
— Cock-sure is explained by Holloway as originating in the fact that the 
gun-lock which had a cock to it, as that part which holds the flint and 
strikes the fire is called, was found much more sure in firing than the old 
match-lock had been. The explanation is not very satisfactory, but I can 
give none better. 

21 Fern-seed was of old thought to have the power of rendering those in- 
visible who carried it. So in Ben Jonson's New Inn, i. 1 : " Because indeed 
I had no medicine, sir, to go invisible ; no fern-seed in my pocket." I sus- 
pect the key to the mystery lies partly in this, that ferns do not propagate by 



88 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IL 

Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding 
to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible. 

Gads. Give me thy hand : thou shalt have a share in our 
purchase, as I am a true man. 22 

Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. 

Gads. Go to ; homo is a common name to all men. Bid 
the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, ye 
muddy knave. \_Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Road by Gads-hill. 

Enter Prince Henry and Pointz ; Bardolph and Peto at 

some distance. 

Pointz. Come, shelter, shelter : I have removed FalstafFs 
horse, and he frets like a gumm'd velvet. 1 

Prince. Stand close. \They retire. 

Enter Falstaff. 

Fal. Pointz ! Pointz, and be hang'd ! Pointz ! 

seeds, but by spores, which are invisible. So Gerard, in his Herbal, 1597, 
states the fern to be " one of those plants which have their seede on the back 
of the leaf, so small as to escape the sighte. Those who perceived that feme 
was propagated by semination, and yet could never see the seede, were 
much at a losse for a solution of the difficultie." It appears, also, that 
there was a special formula of directions as to the time and manner of 
gathering the seed so as to make its wonderful properties available. Prob- 
ably the words " receipt of fern-seed " refer to this. 

22 Purchase was used in the sense of gain, profit, whether legally or ille- 
gally obtained. So in Henry V., iii. 2 : " They will steal any thing, and call 
it purchase? — "True man" occurs repeatedly in this play for honest man, 
and so antithetic to thief. In the next scene the Prince says, " The thieves 
have bound the true men." The usage was common. 

1 An equivoque on frets. Velvet and taffeta were sometimes starched 
with gum ; in which cases the fabric soon got fretted away and spoilt. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 89 

Prince. [Coming forward^ Peace, ye fat-kidney'd ras- 
cal ! what a brawling dost thou keep ! 

Fal. Where's Pointz, Hal? 

Prince. He is walk'd up to the top of the hill : I'll go 
seek him. [Retires. 

Fal. I am accursed to rob 2 in that thief's company : the 
rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not 
where. If I travel but four foot by the squire 3 further a-foot, 
I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair 
death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. 
I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and- 
twenty year, and yet I am bewitch'd with the rogue's com- 
pany. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make 
me love him, 4 I'll be hang'd ; it could not be else : I have 
drunk medicines. — Pointz ! — Hal ! — a plague upon you 
both ! — Bardolph ! — Peto ! — I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot 
further. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn 
true man, and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet 
that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven 
ground is threescore and ten miles a-foot with me ; and the 
stony-hearted villains know it well enough : a plague upon't, 
when thieves cannot be true one to another ! [They whistle.'] 
Whew ! — A plague upon you all ! Give me my horse, you 
rogues ; give me my horse, and be hang'd. 

Prince. [Coming forward.~\ Peace ! lie down ; lay thine 

2 To rob is another gerundial infinitive, and so the same as in robbing. 
The usage is very frequent in Shakespeare. See page 78, note 18. 

3 Squire was often used for a carpenter's measuring- rule; commonly 
called a square. Its length is two feet; and it has a shorter arm making a 
right angle with the longer one, so as to be used for squaring timbers. 

4 Alluding to the philters or love-powders, which were supposed to have 
the effect in question. So, in Othello, i. 3, Brabantio says, " she is abused 
and corrupted by spells and medicines bought of mountebanks." 



90 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IL 

ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread 
of travellers. 

Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being 
down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far a-foot 
again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a 
plague mean ye to colt 5 me thus ? 

Prince. Thou liest ; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. 

Fal. I pr'ythee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, 
good king's son. 

Prince. Out, ye rogue ! shall I be your ostler? 

Fal. Go, hang thyself in thine own heir- apparent garters ! 

If I be ta'en, I'll peach 6 for this. An I have not ballads 

made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, 7 let a cup of sack 

be my poison. When a jest is so forward, and a-foot too, I 

hate it. 

Enter Gadshill. 

Gads. Stand ! 

Fal. So I do, against my will. 

Pointz. O, 'tis our setter : 8 I know his voice. 

{^Coming forward with Bardolph andVYXO. 

Bard. What news? 

Gads. Case ye, case ye ; on with your visards : there's 
money of the King's coming down the hill ; 'tis going to the 
King's exchequer. 

5 To colt is to trick, fool, or deceive. The Prince plays upon the word, as 
Falstaff has lost his horse. 

6 To peach is, in our phrase, to " turn State's evidence." The radical 
sense of the word survives in impeach. 

7 This was considered a pretty sharp infliction. Shakespeare was said 
to have thus revenged himself on Sir Thomas Lucy with a ballad. The 
Psalmist's complaint, " And the drunkards made songs upon me," naturally 
occurs in connection with it. 

8 The one who was to set a match. See page 65, note 23. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 9 1 

Fa/. You lie, ye rogue ; 'tis going to the King's tavern. 

Gads. There's enough to make us all. 

Fal. To be hang'd. 

Prince. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane ; 
Ned Pointz and I will walk lower : if they 'scape from youi 
encounter, then they light on us. 

Peto. How many be there of them ? 

Gads. Some eight or ten. 

Fal. Zwounds, will they not rob us ? 

Prince. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch ? 

Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather ; 
but yet no coward, Hal. 

Prince. Well, we leave that to the proof. 

Pointz. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge : 
when thou need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, 
and stand fast. 

Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang'd. 

Prince. [Aside to Pointz.] Ned, where are our disguises ? 

Pointz. [Aside to P. Hen.] Here, hard by : stand close. 

[Exeunt P. Henry and Pointz. 

Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, 9 say I : 
every man to his business. 

Enter Travellers. 

i Trav. Come, neighbour : 
The boy shall lead our horses down the hill ; 
We'll walk a-foot awhile, and ease our legs. 

Fa/., Gads., &c. Stand ! 

2 Trav. Jesu bless us ! 

9 A common phrase of the time meaning much the same as our "Success 
to you ! " Dole is deal, lot, or portion : hence, " may happiness be his lot." 
See The Winter's Tale, page 48, note 26. 



92 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT II. 



Fal. Strike ; down with them ; cut the villains' throats. 
Ah, whoreson caterpillars ! bacon-fed knaves ! they hate us 
youth : down with them ; fleece them. 

i Trav. O, we're undone, both we and ours for ever ! 

Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, 
ye fat chuffs ; 10 I would your store were here ! On, bacons, 
on ! What, ye knaves ! young men must live. You are 
grand-jurors, are ye ? we'll jure ye, i'faith. 

\_Exeunt Fal., Gads., &>c, driving the Travellers out. 

Re-enter Prince Henry and Pointz, in buckram suits. 

Prince. The thieves have bound the true men. Now, 
could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, 
it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and 
a good jest for ever. 

Pointz. Stand close : I hear them coming. [They retire. 

Re-enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto. 

Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse 
before day. An the Prince and Pointz be not two arrant 
cowards, there's no equity stirring : there's no more valour 
in that Pointz than in a wild-duck. 

\_As they are sharing, the Prince and Pointz 

Prince. Your money ! set upon them. 

10 A chuff, according to Richardson, is a " burly, swollen man ; swollen 
either with gluttony and guzzling, or with ill tempers." So in Massinger's 
Duke of Milan : " To see these chuffs, who every day may spend a soldier's 
entertainment for a year, yet make a third meal of a bunch of raisins." — 
Gorbellied is another word of about the same meaning, — pot-bellied. — Fal- 
staff, " a huge hill of flesh," reviling his victims for their corpulence, is an 
exquisite stroke of humour. Still better, perhaps, his exclaiming " they hate 
us youth," — the old sinner ! — and " young men must live." 



SCENE in. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 93 

Pointz. Villains ! 

[Falstaff, after a blow or two, and the others 
run away, leaving the booty behind them. 

Prince. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse : 
The thieves are scatter'd, and possess'd with fear 
So strongly that they dare not meet each other ; 
Each takes his fellow for an officer. 
Away, good Ned. Fat Falstaff sweats to death, 
And lards the lean earth as he walks along : 
Were't not for laughing, I should pity him. 

Pointz. How the rogue roar'd ! \_Exeunt 



Scene III. — Warkworth. A Room in the Castle. 

Enter Hotspur, reading a letter^ 

Hot. — But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well 
contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your House. 
— He could be contented ; why is he not, then ? In respect 
of the love he bears our House ! — he shows in this, he loves 
his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see 
some more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; — 
Why, that's certain : 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, 
to drink ; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, dan- 
ger, we pluck this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake 
is dangerous ; the friends you have named uncertain; the 
time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too light for the 

1 This letter was from George Dunbar, Earl of March, in Scotland. 
Marches is an old word for borders ; and Earls of March were so called 
from their having charge of the borders, whether those between England 
and Scotland, or those between England and Wales. In the days of border 
warfare, the charge was an important one. 



94 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT II. 



counterpoise of so great an opposition. — Say you so, say you 
so ? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, 
and you lie. What a lack-brain is this ! By the Lord, our 
plot is a good plot as ever was laid ; our friends true and 
constant : a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation ; 
an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited 
rogue is this ! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot 
and the general course of the action. Zwounds ! an I were 
now by this rascal, I could brain him 2 with his lady's fan. 
Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund 
Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower ? is there 
not, besides, the Douglas ? have I not all their letters to meet 
me in arms by the ninth of the next month ? and are they 
not some of them set forward already ? What a pagan rascal 
is this ! an infidel ! Ha ! you shall see now, in very sincerity 
of fear and cold heart, will he to the King, and lay open all 
our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buf- 
fets, 3 for moving such a dish of skimm'd milk with so hon- 
ourable an action ! Hang him J let him tell the King : we 
are prepared. I will set forward to-night. — 

Enter Lady Percy. 

How now, Kate ! 4 I must leave you within these two hours. 

Lady. O, my good lord, why are you thus alone ? 
For what offence have I this fortnight been 
A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed? 
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee 



2 Knock his brains out. See The Tempest, page 107, note 11. 

3 Cut myself into two parts, and set the parts to cuffing each other. 

4 The Poet seems to have had a special liking for the name of Kate. 
The name of Hotspur's wife was Elizabeth. Holinshed, however, calls her 
Elinor. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 95 

Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep ? 

Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, 

And start so often when thou sitt'st alone ? 

Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks ; 

And given my treasures and my rights of thee 

To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy ? 

In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd, 

And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars ; 

Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed ; 

Cry, Courage! to the field 7 And thou hast talk'd 

Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, 

Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, 

Of basilisks, 5 of cannon, culverin, 

Of prisoners ransom'd, and of soldiers slain, 

And all the 'currents 6 of a heady fight. 

Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, 

And thou hast so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep, 

That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow, 

Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream ; 

And in thy face strange motions have appear 'd, 

Such as we see when men restrain their breath 

On some great sudden hest. 7 O, what portents are these? 

Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, 

And I must know it, else he loves me not. 

Hot What, ho ! 

Enter a Servant. 

Is Gilliam s with the packet gone? 

5 Retires are retreats. — Frontiers formerly meant not only the bounds 
of different territories, but also the forts built along or near those limits. — . 
Basilisks are a species of ordnance; so called from their supposed resenv 
blance to the serpent of that name. 

6 'Currents, that is, occurrents, is an old form for occurrences. 

7 Hest is behest. — summons or command. 



96 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II 

Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago. 

Hot. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff? 

Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now. 

Hot. What horse ? a roan, a crop- ear, is it not ? 

Serv. It is, my lord. 

Hot. That roan shall be my throne. 

Well, I will back him straight : O esperance / 8 — 
Bid Butler lead him forth into the park. \Exit Servant. 

Lady. But hear you, my lord. 

Hot. What say'st thou, my lady ? 

Lady. What is it carries you away ? 

Hot. Why, my horse, my love, my horse. 

Lady. Out, you mad-headed ape ! 
A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen 
As you are toss'd with. 9 In faith, 
I'll know your business, Harry, that I will. 
I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir 
About his title, and hath sent for you 
To line 10 his enterprise : but if you go, — 

Hot. So far a-foot, I shall be weary, love. 

Lady. Come, come, you paraquito, 11 answer me 
Directly to this question that I ask : 
In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, 
An if thou wilt not tell me true. 



8 Esperance was the motto of the Percy family. The word is French, and 
means hope. Here it is three syllables ; later in the play it is four. 

9 As the spleen was held to be the special seat of all sudden and explo- 
sive emotions, whether of mirth or anger ; so it is aptly assigned here as the 
cause of Hotspur's skittishness, or the swift jerks of speech and action which 
he is playing off. 

10 The Poet has line repeatedly for strengthen. So in Macbeth, i. 3 : " Did 
line the rebel with hidden help and vantage." 

U Paraquito is a small parrot ; also called perroquet and parakeet. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 97 

Hot. Away, 

Away, you trifler ! Love ? I love thee not, 
I care not for thee, Kate : this is no world 
To play with mammets 12 and to tilt with lips : 
We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns, 
And pass them current too. 13 — Gods me, my horse ! — 
What say'st thou, Kate ? what wouldst thou have with me ? 

Lady. Do you not love me ? do you not, indeed ? 
Well, do not, then ; for, since you love me not, 
I will not love myself. Do you not love me ? 
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no. 

Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride ? 
And when I am o' horseback, I will swear 
I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate ; 
I must not have you henceforth question me 
Whither I go, nor reason whereabout : 
Whither I must, I must ; and, to conclude, 
This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate. 
I know you wise, but yet no further wise 
Than Harry Percy's wife ; constant you are ; 
But yet a woman : and, for secrecy, 
No lady closer ; for I well believe 
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know ; 
And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate. 

Lady. How ! so far? 

Hot. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate : 

12 Mammets were puppets or dolls, here used by Shakespeare for a. female 
plaything ; a diminutive of mam. So in Junius's Nomenclator, 1585 : " Icun- 
culae, mammets or puppets that goe by devises of wyer or strings, as though 
they had life and moving." 

13 A play, of course, between the two senses of crowns, that is, heads, and 
the coin so named. A crack in a coin sometimes made it uncurrent; 
and it might be big enough to make a head so too. 



98 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II 

Whither I go, thither shall you go too ; 
To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you. 
Will this content you, Kate ? 

Lady. It must of force. \Exeunt. 



Scene IV. — Eastcheap} A Room in the Boar* s-Head 

Tavern. 

Enter Prince Henry. 

Prince. Ned, pr'ythee, come out of that fat room, 2 and 
lend me thy hand to laugh a little. 

Enter Pointz. 

Pointz. Where hast been, Hal? 

Prince. With three or four loggerheads 3 amongst three or 
fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very base-string of 
humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash 4 of drawers ; 
and can call them all by their Christian names, as, Tom, 



1 Eastcheap is selected with propriety for the scene of the Prince's merry 
meetings, as it was near his own residence ; a mansion called Cold Har- 
bour, near All-Hallows Church, Upper Thames Street, being granted to 
Henry, Prince of Wales. Shakespeare has hung up a sign for them that 
he saw daily ; for the Boar's-Head Tavern was very near Blackfriars' Play- 
house. 

2 It does not well appear what room Pointz was in, or why it is called 
fat. To be sure, fat and vat were both used for what we call wine-vats. 
So in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7 : " Come, thou monarch of the vine \ in thy 
fats our cares be drown'd," &c. But, so, a fat-room would be in a place 
where wine was made, not in a tavern where it was drunk. See Critical 
Notes. 

3 Loggerheads probably means blockheads. 

4 Leash is properly a string or thong for leading a dog ; and it came to 
signify a trio, because three dogs were usually coupled together. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 99 

Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, 
that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of 
courtesy ; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like FalstarT, 
but a corinthian, 5 a lad of mettle, a good boy, — by the Lord, 
so they call me ; — and, when I am King of England, I shall 
command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking 
deep, dying scarlet ; and, when you breathe in your watering, 8 
they cry hem ! and bid you play it off. To conclude, I am 
so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can 
drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. 
I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour, that thou wert 
not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned, — to sweeten 
which name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, 
clapp'd even now into my hand by an under-skinker ; 7 one that 
never spake other English in his life than Eight shillings 
and sixpence, and, You are welcome ; with this shrill addition, 
Anon, anon, sir / Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon* 

5 Corinthian and Trojan appear to have been a sort of flash terms in use 
among the fast young men of the time. Corinthian probably had some ref- 
erence to the morals of ancient Corinth. Milton, in his Apology for Smec- 
tymnus, speaks of " the sage and rheumatic old prelatess, with all her 
Corinthian laity." 

6 To breathe in your watering is to stop and take breath when you are 
drinking. So in Rowland's Letting of Humour 's Blood, 1600 : 

A pox of piece-meal drinking, William says, 
Play it away, we'll have no stoppes and stays. 

Also in Peacham's Compleat Gentleman : " If he dranke off his cups cleanely, 
took not his wind in his draught, spit not, left nothing in the pot. nor spilt 
any upon the ground, he had the prize." 

7 It appears that the drawers kept sugar folded up in paper, ready to be 
delivered to those who called for sack. — An under-skinker is a tapster, an 
under-drawer, Skink is from scene, drink ; Saxon. 

8 Half-moon is used as the name of a room in the tavern ; and so is 
Pomegranate a little after. — Score was a term for keeping accounts, when 



IOO THE FIRST PART OF ACT II. 

— or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, 
I pr'ythee, do thou stand in some by-room, while I question 
my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar ; and do 
thou never leave calling Francis / that his tale to me may 
be nothing but anon. Step aside, and I'll show thee a 
precedent. 9 [Exit Pointz. 

Pointz. [ Within.] Francis ! 

Prince. Thou art perfect. 

Pointz. [ Within.'] Francis ! 

Enter Francis. 

Fran. Anon, anon, sir. — Look down into the Pomegran- 
ate, Ralph. 

Prince. Come hither, Francis. 

Fran. My lord? 

Prince. How long hast thou to serve, Francis ? 

Fran, Forsooth, five years, and as much as to — 

Pointz. [ Within."] Francis ! 

Fran. Anon, anon, sir. 

Prince. Five years ! by'r Lady, 10 a long lease for the clink- 
ing of pewter. 11 But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to 
play the coward with thy indenture, and show it a fair pair of 
heels and run from it ? 

Fran. O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in 
England, I could find in my heart — 

Pointz. [ Within.] Francis ! 

Fran. Anon, anon, sir. 

tally-sticks were in use. — Bastard, it seems, was the name of a certain wine. 
In the Half-moon refers to the person occupying that room. 

9 A precedent here means an example or specimen, 

10 " By our Lady " was a common oath ; referring to Saint Mary the 
Virgin. 

11 Probably meaning pewter cups for serving wine. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IOI 

Prince. How old art thou, Francis ? 

Fran. Let me see, — about Michaelmas 12 next I shall be — 

Pointz. [ Within.~\ Francis ! 

Fran. Anon, sir. — Pray you, stay a little, my lord. 

Prince. Nay, but hark you, Francis : for the sugar thou 
gavest me, 'twas a pennyworth, was't not ? 

Fran. O Lord, sir, I would it had been two ! 

Prince. I will give thee for it a thousand pound : ask me 
when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it. 

Pointz. [ Within.'] Francis ! 

Fran. Anon, anon. 

Prince. Anon, Francis ? No, Francis ; but to-morrow, 
Francis ; or, Francis, on Thursday ; or, indeed, Francis, when 
thou wilt. But, Francis, — 

Fran. My lord ? 

Prince. — wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, 13 crystal-but- 
ton, nott-pated, agate -ring, puke - stocking, caddis - garter, 
smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch, — 

Fran. O Lord, sir, who do you mean? 

Prince. Why, then, your brown bastard 14 is your only 



12 Michaelmas, the festival of St. Michael and All Angels, falls on the 
29th of September. 

13 The Prince refers to Francis's master, to whom he applies these con- 
temptuous epithets. — Nott-pated is shorn-pated, or cropped; having the hair 
cut close. — Puke-stockings are dark-coloured stockings. Puke is a colour be- 
tween russet and black. — Caddis was probably a kind of ferret or worsted 
lace. A slight kind of serge still bears the name of cadis in France. 

14 Bastard wines are said to be Spanish wines in general, by Olaus Mag- 
nus. He speaks of them with almost as much enthusiasm as Falstaff does 
of sack. — Making a remark or asking a question utterly irrelevant to the 
matter in hand, is an old trick of humour. We have had it once before in 
the question, " And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench ? " 
Here it is used for the purpose of mystifying poor Francis. Ben Jonson 
calls it " a game of vapours." 



102 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II. 

drink ; for, look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will 
sully : in Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much. 
Fran. What, sir? 
Pointz. [ Within.'] Francis ! 

Prince. Away, you rogue ! dost thou not hear them call? 
[Here they both call him ; Francis stands amazed, 
not knowing which way to go. 

Enter Vintner. 

Vint. What, stand'st thou still, and hear'st such a calling? 
Look to the guests within. [Exit Francis.] — My lord, 
old Sir John, with half-a-dozen more, are at the door : shall 
I let them in ? 

Prince. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door. 
[Exit Vintner.] — Pointz ! 

Re-enter Pointz. 

Pointz. Anon, anon, sir. 

Prince. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at 
the door : shall we be merry ? 

Pointz. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye ; what 
cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? 
come, what's the issue? 

Prince. I am now of all humours that have showed them- 
selves humours since the old days of goodman Adam to the 
pupil age of this present twelve o'clock at midnight. 15 — 
What's o'clock, Francis? 

Fran. [Within^ Anon, anon, sir. 

Prince. That ever this fellow should have fewer words 
than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman ! His industry 

15 The Prince means, apparently, that he is now up to any sort of game 
that will yield sport and pass away the time. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IO3 

is up-stairs and down-stairs ; his eloquence the parcel of a 
reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of 
the North ; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots 
at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, Fie 
upon this quiet life / / want work. O my sweet Harry, 
says she, how many hast thou kilVd to-day ? Give my roan 
horse a drench, says he ; and answers, Some fourteen, an 
hour after, — a trifle, a trifle. I pr'ythee, call in Falstaff: 
I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn shall play Dame 
Mortimer his wife. Rivo, lQ says the drunkard. Call in ribs, 
call in tallow. 

Enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto ; followed 
by Francis with wine. 

Pointz. Welcome, Jack : where hast thou been ? 

Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too ! 
marry, and amen ! — Give me a cup of sack, boy. — Ere I 
lead this life long, I'll sew nether-stocks, 17 and mend them 
and foot them too. A plague of all cowards ! — Give me a 
cup of sack, rogue. — Is there no virtue extant ? \_Drinks. 

Prince. Didst thou never see Titan 18 kiss a dish of butter ? 
pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the 
Sun ! if thou didst, then behold that compound. 



16 Of this exclamation, which was frequently used in Bacchanalian rev- 
elry, the origin or derivation has not been discovered. — Brawn refers to 
Falstaff 's plumpness and rotundity. Properly the word means any promi- 
nent muscular part of the body, especially of the arms. 

17 Nether-stocks were what we now call stockings. 

18 In the classical ages of Greece the name Titan was given to various 
mythological personages, supposed to be descended from the original 
Titans, and among others to Helios, the god of the Sun. In Shakespeare's 
time the name was in common use for the Sun. 



104 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II. 

Fal. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too : 19 there is 
nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man : yet a 
coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it, a villain- 
ous coward. — Go thy ways, old Jack : die when thou wilt, 
if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot 20 upon the face 
of the Earth, then am I a shotten herring. 21 There live not 
three good men unhang'd in England; and one of them is 
fat, and grows old : God help the while ! a bad world, I say. 
I would I were a weaver ; I could sing psalms or any thing. 22 
A plague of all cowards ! I say still. 

Prince. How now, wool- sack ! what mutter you ? 

Fal. A king's son \ If I do not beat thee out of thy 
kingdom with a dagger of lath, 23 and drive all thy subjects 
afore thee like a flock of wild-geese, I'll never wear hair on 
my face more. You Prince of Wales ! 

Prince. Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter ? 

Fal. Are you not a coward? answer me to that: — and 
Pointz there ? 

19 Putting lime in sack and other wines appears to have been a common 
device for making them seem fresh and sparkling, when in truth they were 
spiritless and stale. Eliot, in his Orthoepia, 1593, says, " The vintners of Lon- 
don put in lime, and thence proceed infinite maladies, especially the gouts." 

20 The meaning is, " if, when thou shalt die, manhood, good manhood, 
be not forgot," &c. Shakespeare has a great many instances of shall and 
will used indiscriminately. 

21 A shotten herring is one that has cast her spawn, and is therefore very 
lean and lank. 

22 Weavers are mentioned as lovers of music in Twelfth Night. The 
Protestants who fled from the persecutions of Alva were mostly weavers, and, 
being Calvinists, were distinguished for their love of psalmody. Weavers 
were supposed to be generally good singers : their trade being sedentary, 
they had an opportunity of practising, and sometimes in parts, while they 
were at work. 

23 A dagger of lath was the weapon given to the Vice in the old Moral- 
plays; hence it came to be a theme of frequent allusion. See Twelfth 
Night, page 119, note 17. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IO5 

Pointz. Zwounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by 
the Lord, I'll stab thee. 

Fal. I call thee coward ! I'll see thee damn'd ere I call 
thee coward : but I would give a thousand pound, I could 
run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the 
shoulders ; you care not who sees your back : call you that 
backing of your friends ? A plague upon such backing ! give 
me them that will face me. — Give me a cup of sack : I am 
a rogue, if I drunk to-day. 

Prince. O villain ! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou 
drunk'st last. 

Fal. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards ! still 
say I. \D rinks. 

Prince. What's the matter? 

Fal. What's the matter ! there be four of us here have 
ta'en a thousand pound this day morning. 

Prince. Where is it, Jack ? where is it ? 

Fal. Where is it ! taken from us it is : a hundred upon 
poor four of us. 

Prince. What, a hundred, man? 

Fal. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword 24 with a 
dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by 
miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four 
through the hose ; my buckler cut through and through ; my 
sword hack'd like a hand-saw, — ecce signumf I never dealt 
better since I was a man : all would not do. A plague of 
all cowards ! Let them speak : if they speak more or less 
than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness. 

Prince. Speak, sirs'; how was it? 

Gads. We four set upon some dozen, — 

24 Half-sword appears to have been a term of fencing, for a close fight, of 
a fight within half the length of the sword. 



106 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT IL 



Fal. Sixteen at least, my lord. 

Gads. — and bound them. 

Peto. No, no ; they were not bound. 

Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them ; 
or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew. 

Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men 
set upon us, — 

Fal. And unbound the rest, and then came in the other. 

Prince. What, fought ye with them all? 

Fal. All ! I know not what ye call all ; but if I fought 
not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish : if there were 
not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no 
two-legged creature. 

Prince. Pray God you have not murdered some of them. 

Fal. Nay, that's past praying for : I have pepper'd two 
of them ; two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buck- 
ram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit 
in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward : 25 
here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buck- 
ram let drive at me, — 

Prince. What, four ? thou saidst but two even now. 

Fal. Four, Hal ; I told thee four. 

Pointz. Ay, ay, he said four. 

Fal. These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. 
I made me no more ado but took all their seven points in 
my target, thus. 

Prince. Seven? why, there were but four even now. 

25 Old ward is old posture of defence; his usual mode of warding- off the 
adversary's blows. See page 68, note 32. — In Falstaff 's next speech but 
one, the words " mainly thrust " mean thrust mightily, or, as we say, " with 
might and main." The Poet has main repeatedly in this sense ; as " the 
main flood" and " the main of waters " ; that is, the mighty ocean. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IO7 

Fal. In buckram ? 

Pointz. Ay, four, in buckram suits. 

Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. 

Prince. \Aside to Pointz.] Pr'ythee, let him alone ; we 
shall have more anon. 

Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal? 

Prince. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack. 

Fal. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine 
in buckram that I told thee of, — 

Prince. So, two more already. 

Fal. — their points being broken, — 

Pointz. Down fell their hose. 26 

Fal. — began to give me ground : but I followed me 
close, came in foot and hand ; and with a thought seven of 
the eleven I paid. 

Prince. O monstrous ! eleven buckram men grown out of 
two ! 

Fal. But, as the Devil would have it, three misbegotten 
knaves in Kendal Green 27 came at my back and let drive at 
me ; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand. 

Prince. These lies are like the father that begets them, 
gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou nott-pated 
fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-keech, 28 — 

Fal. What, art thou mad ? art thou mad ? is not the truth 
the truth? 

26 The jest lies in a quibble upon points, Falstaff using the word for the 
sharp end of a weapon, Pointz for the tagged lace with which garments were 
then fastened. See Twelfth Night, page 44, note 3. 

27 Kendal green was the livery of Robin Hood and his men. The colour 
took its name from Kendal, in Westmoreland, formerly celebrated for its 
cloth manufacture. 

28 A keech of tallow is the fat of an ox or cow rolled up by the butcher 
into a round lump, in order to be carried to the chandler. 



108 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II. 

Prince. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Ken- 
dal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy 
hand ? come, tell us your reason : what say'st thou to this ? 

Poiniz. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason. 

Fal. What, upon compulsion ? No ; were I at the strap- 
pado, 29 or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on 
compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion ! if reasons 30 
were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason 
upon compulsion, I. 

Prince. I'll be no longer guilty of this sin ; this sanguine 
coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge 
hill of flesh,— 

Fal. Away, you starveling, you eel-skin, you dried neat's- 
tongue, you stock-fish, — O, for breath to utter what is like 
thee ! — you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile 
standing tuck, 31 — 

Prince. • Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again : and, 
when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me 
speak but this : — 

Pointz. Mark, Jack. 

Prince. — We two saw you four set on four; you bound 
them, and were masters of their wealth. — Mark now, how 
a plain tale shall put you down. — Then did we two set on 

29 The strappado was a dreadful punishment inflicted on soldiers and 
criminals, by drawing them up on high with their arms tied backward. 
Randle Holme says that they were let fall half way with a jerk, which not 
only broke the arms, but shook all the joints out of joint ; " which pun- 
ishment it is better to be hanged than for a man to undergo." 

30 It appears that reason and raisin were pronounced alike. 

31 Tuck was one of the names for a straight, slim sword, also called ra- 
pier. This and all the foregoing terms are applied to the Prince in allusion 
to his slenderness of person. The Poet had historical authority for this ; as 
Stowe says of the Prince, " He exceeded the mean stature of men, his neck 
long, body slender and lean, and his bones small." 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. IO9 

you four ; and, with a word, 32 outfaced you from your prize, 
and have it ; yea, and can show it you here in the house : — 
and, Falstaff, you carried yourself away as nimbly, with 
as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and 
roar'd, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to 
hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in 
fight ! What trick, what device, what starting-hole, canst 
thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent 
shame ? 

Pointz. Come, let's hear, Jack ; what trick hast thou now ? 

Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. 
Why, hear ye, my masters : Was it for me to kill the heir- 
apparent? should I turn upon the true Prince? why, thou 
knowest I am as valiant as Hercules : but beware instinct ; 
the lion will not touch the true Prince. Instinct is a great 
matter ; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better 
of myself and thee during my life ; I for a valiant lion, and 
thou for a true prince. But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad 
you have the money. — \To Hostess within.~\ Hostess, clap- to 
the doors : watch to-night, pray to-morrow. — Gallants, lads, 
boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come 
to you ! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play ex- 
tempore ? 

Prince. Content ; and the argument shall be thy running 
away. 

Fal. Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me ! 

Enter the Hostess. 
Host. O Jesu, my lord the Prince, — 

32 •« With a word " is the same as in a word, or in short. 



I IO THE FIRST PART OF ACT II. 

Prince. How now, my lady the hostess ! 33 what say'st thou 
to me? 

Host. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the Court at 
door would speak with you : he says he comes from your father. 

Prince. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, 34 
and send him back again to my mother. 

Fat. What manner of man is he ? 

Host. An old man. 

Fat. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight ? Shall 
I give him his answer? 

Prince. Pr'ythee, do, Jack. 

Fat. Faith, and I'll send him packing. \_Exit. 

Prince. Now, sirs : — by'r Lady, you fought fair ; — so did 
you, Peto; — so did you, Bardolph: you are lions too, you 
ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true Prince ; 
no, — fie ! 

Bard. Faith, I ran when I saw others run. 

Prince. Tell me now in earnest, how came FalstafPs 
sword so hack'd? 

Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger ; and said he 
would swear truth out of England, but he would make you 
believe it was done in fight; and persuaded us to do the 
like. 



33 A sportive rejoinder to her " my lord the Prince." See King Rich- 
ard the Second, page 156, note 14. ■ 

34 The hostess has just called the messenger a nobleman. The Prince 
refers to this, and at the same time plays upon the words royal man. Royal 
and noble were names of coin, the one being ioj., the other 6s. 8d. If, then, 
the messenger were already a noble man, give him 3J. <\d., and it would make 
him a royal man. Hearne relates how " Mr. John Blower, in a sermon 
before her Majesty, first said, ' My royal queen,' and a little after, ' My noble 
queen.' Upon which says the queen, ' What, am I ten groats worse than I 
was ? ' " 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 1 I 

Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to 
make them bleed ; and then to beslubber our garments with 
it, and swear it was the blood of true men. 35 I did that 
I did not this seven year before ; I blush'd to hear his mon- 
strous devices. 

Prince. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen 
years ago, and wert taken with the manner, 36 and ever since 
thou hast blush'd extempore. Thou hadst fire 37 and sword 
on thy side, and yet thou rann'st away : what instinct hadst 
thou for it ? 

Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors ? do you behold 
these exhalations? 

Prince. I do. 

Bard. What think you they portend? 

Prince. Hot livers and cold purses. 38 

Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. 

Prince. No, if rightly taken, halter. 39 — Here comes lean 
Jack, here comes bare-bone. — 

Re-enter Falstaff. 

How now, my sweet creature of bombast ! 40 How long is't 
ago, Jack, since thou saw'st thine own knee ? 

35 We have before had " true man " repeatedly for honest man ; here 
" true men " means brave men, — men of pluck. 

36 " Taken with the manner " is an old phrase for taken in the act. 

37 The Prince means the fire in Bardolph's face. 

38 Hard drinking and no cash ; as drinking heats the liver and empties 
the purse. 

39 There is a quibble implied here between choler and collar. It is ob- 
servable that the Prince deals very much in this kind of implied puns, as if 
the Poet sought thereby to reconcile the native dignity of the man with his 
occasional levity and playfulness. 

40 Bombast is cotton. Gerard calls the cotton-plant the bombast tree. It 
is here used for the stuffing of clothes. 



112 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II. 

Fal. My own knee ! when I was about thy years, Hal, I 
was not an eagle's talon in the waist ; I could have crept into 
any alderman's thumb-ring : a plague of sighing and grief ! 
it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villainous news 
abroad : here was Sir John Bracy from your father ; you 
must to the Court in the morning. That same mad fellow 
of the North, Percy ; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon 41 
the bastinado, and swore the Devil his true liegeman upon 
the cross of a Welsh hook, 42 — what a plague call you him ? 

Pointz. O, Glendower. 

Fal. Owen, Owen, — the same ; and his son-in-law, Mor- 
timer ; and old Northumberland ; and that sprightly Scot of 
Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill perpendic- 
ular, — 

Prince. He that rides at high speed and with his pistol 43 
kills a sparrow flying. 

Fal. You have hit it. 

Prince. So did he never the sparrow. 

Fal. Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him ; he will 
not run. 

Prince. Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him 
so for running ! 

Fal. O' horseback, ye cuckoo ! but a-foot he will not 
budge a foot. 

Prince. Yes, Jack, upon instinct. 

Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and 



41 A demon, who is described as one of the four kings who rule over all 
the demons in the world. 

42 The Welsh hook was a kind of hedging-bill made with a hook at the 
end, and a long handle like the partisan or halbert. 

43 Pistols were not in use in the age of Henry IV. They are said to have 
been much used by the Scotch in Shakespeare's time. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 113 

one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps 44 more : Worcester 
is stolen away to-night ; thy father's beard is turn'd white 
with the news : you may buy land now as cheap as stinking 
mackerel. But, tell me, Hal, art thou not horribly afeard? 
thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out 
three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit 
Percy, and that devil Glendower? art thou not horribly 
afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it? 

Prince. Not a whit, i'faith ; I lack some of thy instinct. 

Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when 
thou comest to thy father : if thou love me, practise an answer. 

Prince. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me 
upon the particulars of my life. 

Fal. Shall I ? content : this chair shall be my state, this 
dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. 

Prince. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, 45 thy golden 
sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for 
a pitiful bald crown ! 

Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, 
now shalt thou be moved. — Give me a cup of sack, to make 
mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept ; for 
I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' 
vein. 46 \_Drinks. 



44 Blue-caps being of old the national head-dress of Scottish soldiers, the 
Scotsmen themselves are here appropriately called blue-caps. 

45 An old form of speech, which we should invert : " a joint-stool is taken 
for thy state," &c. — State is often used by old writers for the official seat of 
Majesty, the throne. — Stool was in common use for what we call a chair ; 
and a joint-stool was a chair with a joint in it ; a folding -chair.. 

46 The banter is here upon the play called " A Lamentable Tragedie 
mixed full of pleasant Mirthe, containing the Life of Cambises, King of Per- 
sia," by Thomas Preston, 1570. — Passion is here used, not for anger, but in 
the classical sense of suffering, grief. 



114 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II 

Prince. Well, here is my leg. 47 

Fal. And here is my speech. — Stand aside, nobility. 

Host. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i'faith ! 

Fal. Weep not, sweet Queen ; for trickling tears are vain. 

Host. O, the Father, how he holds his countenance ! 

Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen ; 
For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes. 

Host. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry 
players 48 as ever I see ! 

Fal. Peace, good pint-pot ; peace, good tickle-brain. 49 — 
Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, 
but also how thou art accompanied : for though the camo- 
mile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, 
the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art 
my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own 
opinion ; but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a 
foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If, 
then, thou be son to me, here lies the point : Why, being son 
to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed Sun of 
heaven prove a micher, 50 and eat blackberries? a question 
not to be ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and 
take purses? a question to be ask'd. There is a thing, 
Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to 

47 Making a leg was much used to signify a bow of reverence ; an obei' 
sance. See Richard the Second, page 66, note 8. 

48 Harlotry was sometimes used adjectively as a general term of re- 
proach ; equivalent, perhaps, to ribald. 

49 Tickle-brain appears to have been a slang term for some potent kind 
of liquor. 

50 A micher here means a truant. So, in Lyly's Mother Bombie, 1594 : 
" How like a tnicher he stands, as if he had truanted from honesty." And 
in Akerman's Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases : " Moocher. A 
truant; a ' blackberry moucher,' — a boy who plays truant to pick black- 
berries." 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 1 5 

many in our land by the name of pitch : this pitch, as ancient 
writers do report, doth defile ; so doth the company thou 
keepest : for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, 
but in tears ; not in pleasure, but in passion ; not in words 
only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man 
whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his 
name. 

Prince. What manner of man, an it like your Majesty? 

Fal. A goodly portly man, i'faith, and a corpulent ; of a 
cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage ; and, 
as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to 
threescore ; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff : 
if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me ; for, 
Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If, then, the tree may be 
known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremp- 
torily 1 speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep 
with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, 
tell me where hast thou been this month ? 

Prince. Dost thou speak like a king ? Do thou stand for 
me, and I'll play my father. 

Fal. Depose me ! if thou dost it half so gravely, so ma- 
jestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels 
for a rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare. 51 

Prince. Well, here I am set. 

Fal. And here I stand. — Judge, my masters. 

Prince. Now, Harry, whence come you? 

Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. 

Prince. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. 

Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false. — Nay, I'll tickle ye 
for a young prince, i'faith. 

51 A rabbit-sucker is a sucking rabbit. — A poulter is a poulterer, a breeder 
of, or dealer in, poultry. 



1 1 6 THE FIRST PART OF ACT It 

Prince. Swearest thou, ungracious boy ? henceforth ne'er 
look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace : 
there is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of an old fat 
man, — a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou 
converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch 52 of 
beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bom- 
bard 53 of sack, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pud- 
ding in his belly, 54 that reverend Vice, that gray Iniquity, 55 
that father ruffian, that vanity in years ? Wherein is he good, 
but to taste sack and drink it ? wherein neat and cleanly, but 
to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, 56 but in 
craft ? wherein crafty, but in villainy ? wherein villainous, but 
in all things ? wherein worthy, but in nothing ? 

Fal. I would your Grace would take me with you : 57 
whom means your Grace ? 

Prince. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, 
Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. 

Fal. My lord, the man I know. 

Prince. I know thou dost. 

62 The receptacle into which meal is bolted. 

63 Bombard was generally used in the Poet's time for a large barrel ; 
sometimes, however, for a huge leathern vessel for holding liquor, which is 
probably its meaning here. 

54 Manningtree was a place in Essex noted for its fine pastures and large 
oxen, and for the great fairs that used to be held there, at which the old 
plays called Moralities were performed, and eating and drinking were done 
on a large scale. It is not unlikely that on some of these occasions oxen 
may have been roasted whole with puddings done up in them, as is said in 
a ballad written in 1658 : " Just so the people stare at an ox in the fair, 
roasted whole with a pudding in's belly." 

55 The Vice, sometimes also called Iniquity, was the stereotyped jester 
and buffoon of the old Moral-plays, which were going out of use in the 
Poet's time. See Richard the Third, page no, note 8. 

56 Cunning is here used in the sense of wise or knowing. 

57 That is, let me understand you. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 117 

Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, 
were to say more than I know. That he is old, — the more 
the pity, — his white hairs do witness it. If sack and sugar 
be a fault, God help the wicked ! if to be old and merry be 
a sin, then many an old host that I know is damn'd : if to 
be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be 
loved. No, my good lord : banish Peto, banish Bardolph, 
banish Pointz ; but, for sweet Jack FalstarT, kind Jack Fal- 
staff, true Jack FalstarT, valiant Jack FalstarT, and therefore 
more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack FalstarT, banish not 
him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's com- 
pany : banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. 

Prince. I do, I will. \_A knocking heard. 

{Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph. 

Re-enter Bardolph, running. 

Bard. O, my lord, my lord ! the sheriff with a most mon- 
strous watch is at the door. 

Fal. Out, ye rogue ! — Play out the play : I have much 
to say in the behalf of that FalstarT. 

Re-enter the Hostess, hastily. 

Host. O Jesu, my lord, my lord, — 

Fal. Heigh, heigh ! the Devil rides upon a fiddlestick : 58 
what's the matter? 

Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door : they 
are come to search the house. Shall I let them in? 

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal ? never call a true piece of gold 



58 This is thought to be an allusion to the old Puritan horror of fiddles 
for the use made of them in dancing. 



Il8 THE FIRST PART OF ACT n. 

a counterfeit : thou art essentially mad, without seeming 



so. 59 

Prince. And thou a natural coward, without instinct. 
Fal. I deny your major : 60 if you will deny the sheriff, 

69 This passage has been a standing puzzle to the commentators ; and I 
have never hitherto met with any comment that seemed to me to make any 
fitting and intelligible sense out of it. At length, Mr. Joseph Crosby has 
written me an explanation which I think fits the case all round, and is just 
the thing. The meaning is, " You are essentially, really, truly a madcap, 
and are not merely putting on the semblance or acting the part of one : it 
is a matter of character, and not of mere imitation, with you ; and to say 
you have but assumed the role of a make-sport for the fun and humour of 
it, is like calling a true piece of gold a counterfeit." So that here, as in 
divers other places, seeming has the sense of simulation or counterfeit, and 
without the sense of beyond, besides, or over and above. In the mock play 
that Falstaff and the Prince have just been performing, the latter seeks to 
lay the blame of his sprees and frolics upon " that villainous, abominable 
misleader of youth, Falstaff." Falstaff is of course unwilling that any such 
idea or representation of himself should be carried to the King. And when 
their game is interrupted by the report of the Sheriffs coming, Sir John 
wants to " play out the play," and to have the Prince practise a very differ- 
ent answer for his father ; boldly assuming the responsibility of his madcap 
frolicsomeness, on the ground of its being a thing ingenerate in him, the 
spontaneous outcome of his native disposition, and not a mere part taken 
up under the leading or inspiration of Sir John. As they cannot continue 
the play, at last Falstaff throws the upshot of what further he has to say into 
the speech in question. — And Mr. Crosby justly gives a like explanation 
of the Prince's speech in reply : " And thou a natural coward, without in- 
stinct." Which means that he is a veritable, born coward ; that his cow- 
ardice is ingenerate in him, and not, as he has alleged, the mere outcome 
of a special instinct stirred into act in a particular exigency or towards a 
particular person. 

60 Here, again, Mr. Crosby gives me a just and fitting explanation. Fal- 
staff has some knowledge of technical terms in logic, such as the major and 
minor premises of a syllogism or proposition. But he here uses major in 
the sense of proposition, putting a part for the whole. It would seem that 
major and mayor were sounded much alike. So Falstaff makes a pun or 
quibble between major, as a term in logic, and mayor, as the head of a civic 
corporation, and the sheriff's official superior. So that his meaning is, " I 
deny your statement, what you have just said or affirmed : if you will deny 
the Sheriff, very well," &e. 



SCENE iv. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I ig 

so ; if not, let him enter : if I become not a cart as well as 
another man, a plague on my bringing up ! I hope I shall 
as soon be strangled with a halter as another. 

Prince. Go, hide thee behind the arras : 61 — the rest walk 
up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and a good 
conscience. 

Pal. Both which I have had ; but their date is out, and 
therefore I'll hide me. 

Prince. Call in the sheriff. — 

\_Exeunt all but the Prince and Pointz. 

Enter Sheriff and Carrier. 

Now, master sheriff, what's your will with me ? 

Sher. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue-and-cry 
Hath follow'd certain men unto this house. 

Prince. What men ? 

Sher. One of them is well known, my gracious lord, — 
A gross fat man. 

Car. As fat as butter. 

Prince. The man, I do assure you, is not here ; 
For I myself at this time have employ 'd him. 62 

61 Tapestry was fixed on frames of wood at such distance from the wall 
as to keep it from being rotted by the dampness ; large spaces were thus 
left between the arras and the walls, sufficient to contain even one of Fal- 
staft's bulk. The old dramatists avail themselves of this convenient hiding- 
place upon all occasions. 

62 Shakespeare has been blamed for putting this falsehood into the 
Prince's mouth. The blame, whatever it be, should rather light on the 
Prince ; and even he is rather to be blamed for what he has all along been 
doing, than for what he now says. To have betrayed Falstaff, after what 
has passed between them, would have been something worse than telling a 
falsehood ; more wicked even, let alone the meanness of it. The Poet did 
not mean to represent the Prince as altogether unhurt by his connection 
with Sir John ; and if he had done so, he would have been false to nature. 



120 THE FIRST PART OF ACT II 

And, sheriff, I'll engage my word to thee, 
That I will, by to-morrow dinner-time, 
Send him to answer thee, or any man, 
For any thing he shall be charged withal : 
And so, let me entreat you leave the house. 

Sher. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen 
Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks. 

Prince. It may be so : if he have robb'd these men, 
He shall be answerable ; and so, farewell. 

Sher. Good night, my noble lord. 

Prince. I think it is good morrow, is it not ? 

Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think't be two o'clock. 

\_Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier. 

Prince. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. 63 Go> 
call him forth. 

Pointz. Falstaff! — fast asleep behind the arras, and snort- 
ing like a horse. 

Prince. Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his 
pockets. [Pointz searches .] What hast thou found ? 

Pointz. Nothing but papers, my lord. 

Prince. Let's see what they be : read them. 

Pointz. [Reads.] 

Item, A capon, . . . . 2S. 2d. 

Item, Sauce, ..... ^d. 

Item, Sack, tivo gallons, . . . $s. 8d. 

Item, Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d. 

Item, Bread, ..... o&. 64 



63 St. Paul's Cathedral is the object meant ; then the most conspicuous 
structure in London, its spire being five hundred feet high. 

64 Ob. is for obolutn, which was the common mode of signifying a half- 
penny. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 121 

Prince. monstrous ! but one half-pennyworth of bread 
to this intolerable deal of sack ! What there is else, keep 
close ; we'll read it at more advantage : there let him sleep 
till day. I'll to the Court in the morning. We must all to 
the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I'll procure 
this fat rogue a charge of foot ; and I know his death will be 
a march of twelve-score. 65 The money shall be paid back 
again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning ; 
and so, good morrow, Pointz. 

Pointz. Good morrow, good my lord. \Exeunt. 



ACT III. 



Scene I. — Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon 's House. 
Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower. 

Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure, 
And our induction 1 full of prosperous hope. 

Hot. Lord Mortimer, — and cousin Glendower, — will you 
sit down? — and uncle Worcester, — a plague upon it! I 
have forgot the map. 

Glend. No, here it is. 
Sit, cousin Percy ; sit, good cousin Hotspur ; 
For by that name as oft as Lancaster 
Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale, and with 
A rising sigh he wisheth you in Heaven. 

65 Meaning that a march of twelve-score yards will be his death. 
1 Induction is used by Shakespeare for commencement, beginning. The 
introductory part of a play or poem was called the induction. 



122 THE FIRST PART OF ACT in 

Hot. And you in Hell, as oft as he hears Owen Glendowei 
spoke of. 

Glend. I cannot blame him : at my nativity 
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, 
Of burning cressets ; 2 ay, and at my birth 
The frame and huge foundation of the Earth 
Shaked like a coward. 

Hot. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if 
your mother's cat had but kitten'd, though yourself had never 
been born. 

Glend. I say the Earth did shake when I was born. 

Hot. And I say the Earth was not of my mind, if you sup- 
pose as fearing you it shook. 

Glend. The Heavens were all on fire, the Earth did tremble. 

Hot. O, then th' Earth shook to see the Heavens on fire, 
And not in fear of your nativity. 
Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth 
In strange eruptions ; oft the teeming Earth 
Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd 
By the imprisoning of unruly wind 
Within her womb ; which, for enlargement striving, 
Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down 
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth, 
Our grandam Earth, having this distemperature, 
In passion shook. 

Glend. Cousin, of many men 

I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave 
To tell you once again, that at my birth 
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes ; 

2 Cressets were lights used as beacons, and sometimes as torches to light 
processions; so named from the French, croissette, because the fire was 
placed on a little cross. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 123 

The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds 

Were strangely clamorous in the frighted fields. 

These signs have mark'd me extraordinary; 

And all the courses of my life do show 

I am not in the roll of common men. 

Where is he living, — clipp'd in with the sea 

That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales, — 

Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me ? 

And bring him out that is but woman's son 

Can trace me in the tedious ways of art, 

And hold me pace in deep experiments. 

Hot. I think there is no man speaks better Welsh. — I'll 
to dinner. 

Mort. Peace, cousin Percy j you will make him mad. 

Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. 

Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man ; 
But will they come when you do call for them ? 

Glend. Why, I can teach thee, cousin, to command 
The Devil. 

Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the Devil 
By telling truth : tell truth, and shame the Devil. 
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, 
And I'll be sworn I've power to shame him hence. 
O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the Devil ! 

Mort. Come, come, 
No more of this unprofitable chat. 

Glend. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head 
Against my power ; thrice from the banks of Wye 
And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent 
Him bootless home and weather-beaten back. 

Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too ! 
How 'scaped he agues, in the Devil's name ! 



124 THE FIRST PART OF ACT III. 

Gknd. Come, here's the map : shall we divide our right 
According to our threefold order ta'en? 

Mort Th' archdeacon hath divided it 
Into three limits very equally. 
England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, 3 
By south and east is to my part assign'd : 
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore, 
And all the fertile land within that bound, 
To Owen Glendower : — and, dear coz, to you 
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent. 
And our indentures tripartite 4 are drawn ; 
Which being sealed interchangeably, — 
A business that this night may execute, — 
To-morrow, cousin Percy, you, and I, 
And my good Lord of Worcester, will set forth 
To meet your father and the Scottish power, 
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury. 
My father Glendower is not ready yet, 
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days : — 
\To Glend.] Within that space you may have drawn to- 
gether 
Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen. 

Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords : 
And in my conduct shall your ladies come ; 
From whom you now must steal, and take no leave, 
Or there will be a world of water shed 
Upon the parting of your wives and you. 

3 Hitherto was an adverb of place as well as of time. 

4 Indentures are covenants or compacts ; here called tripartite because 
there are three parties to them. Ordinarily they are between two parties, 
and then are drawn in duplicate. These were to be signed and sealed in- 
terchangeably, that each of the three parties might have a copy. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 125 

Hot. Methinks my moiety, 5 north from Burton here, 
In quantity equals not one of yours : 
See how this river comes me cranking in, 6 
And cuts me from the best of all my land 
A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle 7 out. 
I'll have the current in this place damn'd up ; 
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run 
In a new channel, fair and evenly : 
It shall not wind with such a deep indent, 
To rob me of so rich a bottom 8 here. 

Glend. Not wind ? it shall, it must ; you see it doth. 

Mort. Yea, but 
Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up 
With like advantage on the other side ; 
Gelding th' opposed continent 9 as much 
As on the other side it takes from you. 

Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here, 
And on this north side win this cape of land ; 
And then he runneth straight and evenly. 

Hot. I'll have it so : a little charge will do it. 

Glend. I will not have it alter'd. 

Hot. Will not you ? 

Glend. No, nor you shall not. 

Hot. Who shall say me nay? 

Glend. Why, that will I. 

5 A moiety was often used by the writers of Shakespeare's age as a portion 
of any thing, though not divided into equal parts. 

6 To crank is to crook, to turn in and out. 

7 A cantle is a portion, a corner or fragment of any thing. 

8 Bottom is used of a low and level piece of land, such as the interval of 
a river. 

9 Continent was used in a general sense for that which holds in or con* 
tains any thing; hence for the banks of a river. 



126 THE FIRST PART OF ACT III. 

Hot. Let me not understand you, then ; 

Speak it in Welsh. 

Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you ; 
For I was train'd up in the English Court ; 
Where, being but young, I framed to the harp 
Many an English ditty lovely well, 
And gave the tongue a helpful ornament, 
A virtue that was never seen in you. 

Hot. Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart : 
I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew, 
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers ; 
I had rather hear a brazen canstick 10 turn'd, 
Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree ; 
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, 
Nothing so much as mincing poetry : 
Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag. 

Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd. 

Hot. I do not care : I'll give thrice so much land 
To any well- deserving friend ; 
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, 
I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. 
Are the indentures drawn ? shall we be gone ? 

Glend. The Moon shines fair ; you may away by night : 
I'll in and haste the writer, 11 and withal 
Break with 12 your wives of your departure hence : 
I am afraid my daughter will run mad, 
So much she doteth on her Mortimer. {Exit 

Mort. Fie, cousin Percy ! how you cross my father ! 

Hot. I cannot choose : sometime he angers me 

10 Canstick was a common contraction of candlestick. 

11 The writer of the indentures already mentioned. 

12 Break with is old language for breaking or opening a subject to. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 127 

With telling me of the moldwarp 13 and the ant, 
Of the dreamer Merlin 14 and his prophecies, 
And of a dragon and a finless fish, 
A clip-wing'd griffin and a moulten 15 raven, 
A couching lion and a ramping cat, 
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff 
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what, 
He held me last night at the least nine hours 
In reckoning up the several devils' names 
That were his lacqueys : I cried hum, and well, 
But mark'd him not a word. O, he's as tedious 
As is a tired horse, a railing wife ; 
Worse than a smoky house : I had rather live 
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, 16 far, 
Than feed on cates and have him talk to me 
In any summer-house in Christendom. 

Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman ; 
Exceedingly well-read, and profited 
In strange concealments ; 17 valiant as a lion, 
And wondrous affable, and as bountiful 
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin ? 

13 The moldwarp is the mole ; so called because it warps the surface of 
the ground into ridges. 

14 Merlin was a " great magician," whose " deep science and hell-dreaded 
might " was much celebrated in the ancient mythology of Wales. Some of 
his wonderful doings, especially his magic mirror, are choicely sung in Spen- 
ser's Faerie Queene, iii. 2. 

15 To moult is used for birds shedding their feathers. Moulten for 
moulting. — Griffin, a fabulous animal, half lion, half eagle. 

16 Windmills were of old used in England for grinding corn, and of 
course were perched above the houses in which the grinding was done. 
Such a house would not be a very quiet place of residence. — Cates, in the 
next line, is dainties or delicacies. 

17 Skilled in wonderful secrets. 



128 THE FIRST PART OF ACT UL 

He holds your temper in a high respect, 
And curbs himself even of his natural scope 
When you do cross his humour ; faith, he does : 
I warrant you, that man is not alive 
Might so have tempted him as you have done, 
Without the taste of danger and reproof : 
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you. 

Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blunt ; 18 
And since your coming hither have done enough 
To put him quite beside his patience. 
You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault : 
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood, — 
And that's the dearest grace it renders you, — 
Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, 
Defect of manners, want of government, 
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain ; 
The least of which haunting a nobleman 
Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain 
Upon the beauty of all parts besides, 
Beguiling them of commendation. 

Hot. Well, I am school'd : good manners be your speed ! 
Here come our wives, and let us take our leave. 

Re-enter Glendower, with Lady Mortimer and Lady Percy 

Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me, 
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh. 

Glend. My daughter weeps : she will not part with you ; 
She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars. 

Mort. Good father, tell her she and my aunt Percy 19 

18 The Poet has a similar expression in King "John, v. 2 : " The Dauphin 
is too wilful-opposite : he flatly says he'll not lay down his arms." 

19 It has already been seen that Hotspur's wife was sister to Sir Edmund 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I 20, 

Shall follow in your conduct speedily. 

[Glendower speaks to Lady Mortimer in Welsh, 
and she answers him in the same. 
Glend. She's desperate here ; a peevish self-will'd har- 
lotry, 20 
One no persuasion can do good upon. 

[Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer in Welsh. 
Mort. I understand thy looks : that pretty Welsh 
Which thou pour'st down from those two swelling heavens 21 
I am too perfect in ; and, but for shame, 
In such a parley should I answer th.ee. 

\Lady Mortimer speaks to him again in Welsh. 
I understand thy kisses, and thou mine, 
And that's a feeling disputation : 
But I will never be a truant, love, 
Till I have learn'd thy language ; for thy tongue 
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd, 
Sung by a fair queen in a Summer's bower, 
With ravishing division, 22 to her lute. 

Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run 'quite mad. 
\Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer again in Welsh. 

Mortimer, and aunt to the young Earl of March. And she has been spoken 
of in the play as Mortimer's sister, yet he here calls her his aunt. From 
which it appears that Shakespeare not only mistook Sir Edmund for the 
Earl of March, or rather followed an authority who had so mistaken him, 
but sometimes confounded the two. 

20 The more common meaning of peevish was foolish., and so, probably, 
here. — It appears that harlotry was used somewhat as a general term cf 
reproach, without implying any such sense as we attach to harlot. So, in 
Romeo and Juliet, iv. 2, Capulet uses it of his daughter : " A peevish self- 
will'd harlotry it is." 

21 " Those two swelling heavens " are the lady's cerulean eyes, to be sure ; 
and swelling, as eyes are wont to do when preparing a shower. 

22 Division appears to have been used for what we call accompaniment. 
Some explain it variations. An accompaniment with variations, perhaps. 



I30 THE FIRST PART OF ACT III. 

Mort. O, I am ignorance itself in this ! 

Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes 23 lay you down, 
And rest your gentle head upon her lap, 
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you, 
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep, 
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness ; 
Making such difference betwixt wake and sleep, 
As is the difference betwixt day and night, 
The hour before the heavenly-harness 'd team 
Begins his golden progress in the East. 

Mort. With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing : 
By that time will our book, 24 I think, be drawn. 

Glend. Do so : 
An those musicians that shall play to you 
Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, 
Yet straight they shall be here : sit, and attend. 

Hot. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down : come, 
quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap. 

Lady P. Go, ye giddy goose. \T1ie music plays. 

Hot. Now I perceive the Devil understands Welsh ; 
And 'tis no marvel he's so humorous. 25 
By'r Lady, he's a good musician. 

Lady P. Then should you be nothing but musical ; for 



23 English noblemen, even down to Shakespeare's time, had their floors 
carpeted with rushes ; and it would seem that even this was thought luxuri- 
ous enough to be termed wanton. 

24 It was usual to call any manuscript of bulk a book in ancient times, 
such as patents, grants, articles, covenants, &c. 

25 It is rather difficult to keep up with the use of humorous and its cog- 
nates in the Poet's time. It was much applied to freaky, skittish persons, 
men addicted to sudden gusts and flaws. Perhaps our word crotchety comes 
as near to it as any now in use. See The Merchant, page 162, note 12 ; 
also As You Like It, page 46, note 26. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 3 I 

you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, 
and hear the lady sing in Welsh. 

Hot. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, 26 howl in Irish. 

Lady P. Wouldst thou have thy head broken ? 

Hot. No. 

Lady P. Then be still. 

Hot. Neither ; 'tis a woman's fault. 27 

Lady P. Now God help thee ! 

Hot. Peace ! she sings. \_A Welsh song by Lady Mort. 
Come, Kate, I'll have your song too. 

Lady P. Not mine, in good sooth. 

Hot. Not yours, in good sooth ! 'Heart, you swear like 
a comfit-maker's 28 wife ! Not mine, in good sooth ; and, As 
true as I live ; and, As God shall mend me ; and, As sure 
as day ; 

And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths, 
As if thou ne'er walk'dst further than Finsbury. 29 
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, 
A good mouth-filling oath ; and leave in sooth, 
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread, 
To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens. 30 

26 Brack was a common term for a fine-nosed hound. It appears that 
Lady was the name of Hotspur's musical howler. 

27 It is not quite clear what may be the woman's fault intended. If the 
context be taken strictly, it must be an unwillingness either to have the head 
broken or to hold the tongue. Or it may be that a woman will neither talk 
reason nor be still when others talk it. But probably it is a sort of disguised 
or ironical compliment ; that he cannot be still while he has his wife to talk 
to, or cannot listen to the singing while she keeps him talking. 

28 A comfit-maker is a maker of confectionery ; that is, sugar-candies. 

29 Finsbury, now a part of the city, but formerly open walks and fields, 
was a common resort of the citizens for airing and recreation. 

30 Velvet-guards, or trimmings of velvet, were the city fashion in Shake- 
speare's time ; here regarded as marks of softness or finical ness. — Sunday- 



132 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IIL 

Come, sing. 

Lady P. I will not sing. 

Hot. Tis the next way to turn tailor, 31 or be redbreast- 
teacher. An the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these 
two hours ; and so, come in when ye will. \_Exit. 

Glend. Come, come, Lord Mortimer ; you are as slow 
As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go. 
By this our book's drawn ; we'll but seal, and then 
To horse immediately. 

Mort With all my heart. \_Exeunt. 

Scene II. — London. A Room in the Palace. 

Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, and Lords. 

King. Lords, give us leave ; the Prince of Wales and I 
Must have some private conference : but be near at hand, 
For we shall presently have need of you. — \_Exeunt Lords. 
I know not whether God will have it so, 
For some displeasing service I have done, 
That, in His secret doom, out of my blood l 
He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me ; 
But thou dost, in thy passages of life, 
Make me believe that thou art only mark'd' 
For the hot vengeance and the rod of Heaven 

citizens are people in their Sunday-clothes or holiday finery. — Pepper- 
gingerbread is gingerbread spiced, or, perhaps, finely-seasoned sweet-cake. 

31 Tailors, like weavers, have ever been remarkable for their vocal skill. 
Percy is jocular in his mode of persuading his wife to sing. The meaning 
is, " to sing is to put yourself upon a level with tailors and teachers of birds." 
— " The next way " is the nearest way. 

1 Blood, as often, for person ; that is, his person as represented in his 
progeny or offspring. The King is thinking of the wrong he has done to 
his own kindred, or family blood, in the person of Richard. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 133 

To punish my mistreadings. 2 Tell me else, 

Could such inordinate and low desires, 

Such poor, such base, such lewd, such mean attempts, 3 

Such barren pleasures, rude society, 

As thou art match'd withal and grafted to, 

Accompany the greatness of thy blood, 

And hold their level with thy princely heart ? 

Prince. So please your Majesty, I would I could 
Quit all offences with as clear excuse 
As well as I am doubtless 4 I can purge 
Myself of many I am charged withal : 
Yet such extenuation let me beg, 
As, in reproof of many tales devised 
By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers, 5 — 
Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear, — 
I may, for some things true, wherein my youth 
Hath faulty wander' d and irregular, 
Find pardon on my true submission. 6 

2 Mistreadings, of course, for misdoings or transgressions. The speaker's 
conscience is ill at ease ; and his sense of guilt in the discrowning of his 
cousin and the usurping of his seat arms his son's irregularities with the 
stings of a providential retribution. 

3 Lewd in its old sense of wicked or depraved. Repeatedly so. Attempts: 
fox pursuits or courses. 

4 As the Poet often uses doubt in the sense of fear, so here he has doubt- 
less for fearless, that is, confident, or sure. So, once more, in King John, iv. 
I : " Sleep doubtless and secure." — Here, as often, quit is acquit, with myself 
understood after it, just as purge. As well is simply redundant, save in 
point of metre. 

5 News-mongers are tattlers or tale-bearers ; sycophants, in the proper 
classical sense of the term ; that is, those who curry favour by framing or 
propagating scandalous reports. — Reproof, again, for disproof See page 
68, note 33. 

o The construction of this passage is somewhat obscure : " Let me beg so 
much extenuation that, upon confutation of many false charges, I may be par* 
doned some that are true'' 



134 THE FIRST FART OF ACT IIL 

King, God pardon thee ! Yet iet me wonder, Harry, 
At thy affections, which do hold a wing 
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors. 
Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost, 7 
Which by thy younger brother is supplied ; 
And art almost an alien to the hearts 
Of all the Court and princes of my blood : 
The hope and expectation of thy time 
Is ruin'd ; and the soul of every man 
Prophetically does forethink thy fall. 
Had I so lavish of my presence been, 
So common-hackney 'd in the eyes of men, 
So stale and cheap to vulgar company, 
Opinion, 8 that did help me to the crown, 
Had still kept loyal to possession, 
And left me in reputeless banishment, 
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood. 
By being seldom seen, I could not stir 
But, like a comet, I was wonder'd at ; 
That men would tell their children, This is he ; 
Others would say, Where, which is Bolingbroke ? 
And then I stole all courtesy from Heaven, 9 



7 The Poet here anticipates an event that took place several years later. 
Holinshed, having just spoken of the Prince's assault on the Chief Justice, 
adds, " The king after expelled him out of his privie councell, banisht him 
the court, and made the duke of Clarence, his yoonger brother, president 
of councell in his steed." 

8 Opinion here stands for public sentiment. The Poet has it repeatedly 
in the kindred sense of reputation. — Possession, in the next line, is put for 
the person in possession ; that is, of the throne. 

9 This innocent passage has drawn forth some very odd quirks of expla- 
nation, or obscuration rather. Of course it means " I put all the gracious- 
ness and benignity of the heavens into my manners and address " ; some 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 35 

And dress'd myself in such humility, 
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts, 
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, 10 
Even in the presence of the crowned King. 
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new ; 
My presence, like a robe pontifical, 
Ne'er seen but wonder 'd at : and so my state, 
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast, 
And won by rareness such solemnity. 11 , 
The skipping King, he ambled up and down 
With shallow jesters and rash bavin 12 wits, 
Soon kindled and soon burnt ; carded 13 his state, 
Mingled his royalty, with capering fools ; 14 
Had his great name profaned with their scorns ; 
And gave his countenance, against his name, 
To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push 

what as in Wordsworth's well-known line, " The gentleness of heaven is on 
the sea." 

10 Meaning, caused both men's hearts to beat high with allegiant emotions 
towards himself, and their mouths to overflow with loud salutations. The 
Poet is very fond of the word pluck in the sense of draw, pull, or rouse. 

11 That is, such solemnity as belongs to a feast. Solemnity was often used 
of feasts of state ; much in the sense of dignity. Macbeth invites Banquo to 
" a solemn supper," when he means to have him murdered. 

12 Bavins are brush-wood, or small fagots used for lighting fires. So in 
Lyly's Mother Bombie, 1594 : "Bavins will have their flashes, and youth their 
fancies, the one as soon quenched as the other burnt." 

13 This word has been explained in divers ways. The most probable 
meaning is shown in Bacon's Natural History : " It is an excellent drink for 
a consumption, to be drunk either alone, or carded with some other beer." 
Likewise in Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier : " You card your beer 
(if you see your guests begin to get drunk) half small, half strong." So 
that " carded his state " probably means the same as " mingled his royalty " ; 
the latter being explanatory of the former. 

14 Alluding, no doubt, to the dancing, fashion-mongering sprigs that 
Richard the Second drew about him. 



1 36 THE FIRST PART OF ACT III, 

Of every beardless vain comparative ; 15 

Grew a companion to the common streets, 

Enfeoff' d himself to popularity ; 16 

That, being daily swallow'd by men's eyes, 

They surfeited with honey, and began 

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little 

More than a little is by much too much. 

So, when he had occasion to be seen, 

He was but as the xuckoo is in June, 

Heard, not regarded ; seen, but with such eyes 

As, sick and blunted with community, 17 

Afford no extraordinary gaze, 

Such as is bent on sun-like majesty 

When it shines seldom in admiring eyes ; 

But rather drowsed, and hung their eyelids down, 

Slept in his face, and render'd such aspect 

As cloudy men use to their adversaries, 

Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full. 

And in that very line, Harry, stand'st thou ; 

For thou hast lost thy princely privilege 

With vile participation : 18 not an eye 

But is a-weary of thy common sight, 

Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more ; 

Which now doth that I would not have it do, 

Make blind itself with foolish tenderness. 

Prince. I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, 

15 That is, every beardless, vain young fellow who affected wit, or was a 
dealer in comparisons. See page 63, note 20. 

16 Gave himself up, absolutely and entirely, to popularity. To enfeoff'^, a 
law term, signifying to give or grant any thing to another in fee-simple. 
Popularity here means vulgar intercourse, or promiscuousness. 

17 Community for commonness, or cheap familiarity. 

18 Vile participation for low, vulgar companionship. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 37 

Be more myself. 

King. For all the world, 

As thou art to this hour, was Richard then 
When I from France set foot at Ravenspurg j 
And even as I was then is Percy now. 
Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot, 
He hath more worthy interest to the state 19 
Than thou, the shadow of succession ; 
For, of no right, nor colour like to right, 
He doth fill fields with harness in the realm ; 
Turns head against the lion's armed jaws ; 
And, being no more in debt to years than thou, 20 
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on 
To bloody battles and to bruising arms. 
What never-dying honour hath he got 
Against renowned Douglas ! whose high deeds, 
Whose hot incursions, and great name in arms, 
Holds from all soldiers chief majority 
And military title capital 21 

Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ : 
Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathing- clothes, 
This infant warrior, in his enterprises 
Discomfited great Douglas : ta'en him once, 



19 We should now write in the state, but such was the usage of the Poet's 
time. So in The Winter's Tale, iv. i : "He is less frequent to his princely 
exercises than formerly." — State for throne, as often. 

20 The Poet with great dramatic propriety approximates the ages of the 
Prince and Hotspur, for the better kindling of a noble emulation between 
them. So that we need not suppose him ignorant that Hotspur was about 
twenty years the older. — Harness, two lines before, is armour. So in Mac- 
beth, v. 5 : " At least we'll die with harness on our back." 

21 Majority for pre-eminence or priority ; and capital for principal; the 
head man of the age in soldiership. 



I38 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT IIL 



Enlarged him, and made a friend of him, 

To fill the mouth of deep defiance up, 

And shake the peace and safety of our throne. 

And what say you to this ? Percy, Northumberland, 

Th' Archbishop's Grace of York, Douglas, and Mortimer 

Capitulate 22 against us, and are up. 

But wherefore do I tell these news to thee ? 

Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes, 

Which art my near'st and dearest enemy? 23 

Thou that art like enough, — through vassal fear, 

Base inclination, and the start of spleen, — 

To fight against me under Percy's pay, 

To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns, 

To show how much thou art degenerate. 

Prince. Do not think so ; you shall not find it so : 
And God forgive them that so much have sway'd 
Your Majesty's good thoughts away from me ! 
I will redeem all this on Percy's head, 
And, in the closing of some glorious day, 
Be bold to tell you that I am your son ; 
When I will wear a garment all of blood, 
And stain my favour 24 in a bloody mask, 
Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it : 
And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights, 
That this same child of honour and renown, 
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, 
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet. 

22 To capitulate formerly signified to make articles of agreement. 

23 So in Hamlet, i. 2 : " Would I had met my dearest foe in Heaven or 
ever I had seen that day, Horatio." For this use of dear see Twelfth 
Night, page 125, note 6. 

24 The word mask ascertains favour to mean face here. 



SCENE ii. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 139 

For every honour sitting on his helm, 

Would they were multitudes, and on my head 

My shames redoubled ! for the time will come, 

That I shall make this northern youth exchange 

His glorious deeds for my indignities. 

Percy is but my factor, good my lord, 

T engross up glorious deeds 25 on my behalf; 

And I will call him to so strict account, 

That he shall render every glory up, 

Yea, even the slightest worship of his time, 

Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart. 

This, in the name of God, I promise here : 

The which if I perform, and do survive, 

I do beseech your Majesty, may salve 

The long-grown wounds of my intemperance : 

If not, the end of life cancels all bands; 26 

And I will die a hundred thousand deaths 

Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow. 

King. A hundred thousand rebels die in this. 
Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein. — 

Enter Sir Walter Blunt. 

How now, good Blunt ! thy looks are full of speed. 

Blunt. So is the business that I come to speak of. 
Lord Mortimer of Scotland 27 hath sent word 
That Douglas and the English rebels met 
Th' eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury : 

25 As capitalists or speculators sometimes send out factors ; that is, agents^ 
to buy up and monopolize wool, grain, or other products. 

26 Bands and bonds were used indifferently for obligations. — Intemper- 
ance in the classical sense of lacking self-restraint or self-government. 

27 There was no such person as Lord Mortimer of Scotland; but there 
was a Scottish Earl of March and an English Earl of March, and this same 



I4O THE FIRST PART OF ACT III. 

A mighty and a fearful head they are, 
If promises be kept on every hand, 
As ever offer'd foul play in a State. 

King. The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day ; 
With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster ; 
For this advertisement 28 is five days old. 
On Wednesday next you, Harry, shall set forward ; 
On Thursday we ourselves will march : 
Our meeting is Bridgenorth : and, Harry, you 
Shall march through Glostershire ; by which account, 
Our business valued, 29 some twelve days hence 
Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet. 
Our hands are full of business : let's away ; 
Advantage feeds him fat, while men delay. [Exeunt. 

Scene III. — Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's-Head 

Tavern. 

Enter Falstaff mid Bardolph. 

Eal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last 
action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin 
hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown ; I am withered 
like an old apple-john. 1 Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, 

ness of title probably led the Poet into a confusion of the names. The Scot- 
tish Earl of March was George Dunbar, who attached himself so warmly to 
the English that the Parliament petitioned the King to bestow some reward 
on him. He fought on the side of King Henry in this rebellion. See page 
93, note 1. 

28 Advertisement is intelligence, or information. 

29 That is, an estimate being made of the business to be done. 

1 The apple-john was by no means the same as the apple-jack of later 
times, though the two may be some kin. The former was a variety of the 
apple, which is said to have kept two years. Thus described by Phillips : 
"John-apple, whose wither'd rind, entrench'd by many a furrow, aptly rep- 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I4I 

while I am in some liking ; 2 I shall be out of heart shortly, 
and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not 
forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a 
peppercorn, a brewer's horse : 3 the inside of a church ! 
Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. 

Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. 

Fal. Why, there is it : come, sing me a song ; make 
me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need 
to be ; virtuous enough ; swore little ; diced not above seven 
times a week ; paid money that I borrowed — three or four 
times ; lived well, and in good compass : and now I live 
out of all order, out of all compass. 

Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be 
out of all compass, — out of all reasonable compass, Sir John. 

Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life : 
thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, 4 
— but 'tis in the nose of thee ; thou art the Knight of the 
Burning Lamp. 

resents decrepid age." And, in The Second Part, one of the persons, speak- 
ing of Falstaff, says, " The Prince once set a dish of apple-johns before him, 
and told him there were five more Sir Johns ; and, putting off his hat, said, 
I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, wither'd knights." 

2 The sense of liking is about the same as our phrase good keeping. 
Thus in the Prayer-Book, Psalm xcii. : " Such as are planted in the House 
of the Lord shall bring forth more fruit in their age, and shall be fat and 
well-liking." The English Psalter is much older than the version of 161 1, 
which renders the same passage " fat and. flourishing." 

3 That Falstaff was unlike a brewer's horse may be gathered from a 
conundrum in The Devil's Cabinet Opened : " What is the difference between 
a drunkard and a brewer's horse f — Because one carries all his liquor on 
his back, and the other in his belly." 

4 Admiral is, properly, the leading ship in a fleet or naval squadron ; 
hence transferred, as a title, to the head of a fleet. Of course the admiral 
was to go foremost, and in the night to bear a lantern conspicuous in the 
stern, ox poop, that those in the rear might keep in her track. 



142 THE FIRST PART OF ACT III. 

Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. 

Fal. No, I'll be sworn ; I make as good use of it as many 
a man doth of a death's-head or a memento mori : I never 
see thy face but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived 
in purple ; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If 
thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face ; 
my oath should be, By this fire, thafs God's angel: 5 but 
thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for 
the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou 
rann'st up Gad's-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did 
not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wild- 
fire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual 
triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light ! Thou hast saved me 
a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in 
the night betwixt tavern and tavern : 6 but the sack that thou 
hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap 7 
at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintain'd that 
salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty 
years ; God reward me for it ! 

Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your stomach ! 

Fal. God-a-mercy ! so should I be sure to be heart- 
burn'd. — Rnter fhe Hostess 

How now, Dame Partlet the hen ! 8 have you inquired yet 
who pick'd my pocket? 

5 Alluding, probably, to Exodus, iii. 2 : " And the angel of the Lord ap- 
peared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush ; " &c. 

6 Candles and lanterns to let were then cried about London, the streets 
not being then lighted. 

7 Cheap is the past participle of cypan, Sax., to traffic, to bargain, to buy 
and sell. Good cheap was therefore a good bargain. Our ancestors used 
good cheap and better cheap as we now use cheap and cheaper. 

8 God-a-mercy is an old colloquialism for God have mercy. — Heart-burn 
is an old name for the gastric pains caused by indigestion or acid fermenta- 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I43 

Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do 
you think I keep thieves in my house ? I have search'd, I 
have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, 
servant by servant : the tithe 9 of a hair was never lost in my 
house before. 

Fal. Ye lie, hostess : Bardolph was shaved, and lost many 
a hair ; and I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you 
are a woman, go. 

Host. Who, I ? no ; I defy thee : God's light, I was never 
calPd so in mine own house before. 

Fal. Go to, I know you well enough. 

Host. No, Sir John ; you do not know me, Sir John. I 
know you, Sir John : you owe me money, Sir John ; and 
now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it : I bought you a 
dozen of shirts to your back. 

Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas : 10 I have given them away to 
bakers' wives, and they have made bolters 11 of them. 

Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shil- 
lings an ell. 12 You owe money here besides, Sir John, for 
your diet and by-drinkings, 13 and money lent you, four-and- 
twenty pound. 

tion. — " Dame Partlet the hen " is a highly-distinguished character in the 
story of Reynard the Fox. See The Winter's Tale, page 78, note 9. 
9 The tithe is the tenth part ; as in old ecclesiastical language. 

10 Dowlas is said to be from Dowlens, the name of a town in France, 
where a kind of coarse linen cloth was made. 

11 Bolters were sieves, used for sifting or bolting meal or flour. 

12 Eight shillings an ell, for Holland linen, appears a high price for the 
time ; but hear Stubbs in his Anatomie of Abuses : " In so much as I have 
heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillinges, some twentie, some for- 
tie, some five pound, some twentie nobles, and (whiche is horrible to heare) 
some ten pound a peece ; yea the meanest shirte that commonly is worne 
of any doth cost a crowne or a noble at the least ; and yet that is scarsely 
thought fine enough for the simplest person." 

13 By-drinkings are drinkings between meals. 



144 THE FIRST PART OF ACT III. 

Fal. He had his part of it ; let him pay. 

Host. He ? alas, he is poor ; he hath nothing. 

Fal. How ! poor ? look upon his face ; what call you 
rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks : I'll 
not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker 14 of me ? 
shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my 
pocket picked ? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's 
worth forty mark. 

Host. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know 
not how oft, that that ring was copper ! 

Fal. How ! the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup : 15 'sblood, 
an he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would 
say so. — 

Enter Prince Henry and Pointz, marching. Falstaff 
meets them, playing on his truncheon like a fife. 

How now, lad ! is the wind in that door, i'faith ? must we 
all march? 

Bard. Yea, two-and-two, Newgate-fashion. 16 

Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me. 

Prince. What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How does 
thy husband? I love him well ; he is an honest man. 

Host. Good my lord, hear me. 

Fal. Pr'ythee, let her alone, and list to me. 

Prince. What say'st thou, Jack? 

Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, 

14 Younker is here used for a novice, a dupe, or a person thoughtless 
through inexperience; something like out greenhorn. 

15 Dyce says, "sneak-cup is plainly one who sneaks from his cup"; that 
is, dodges the liquor. 

16 Bardolph is somewhat keen here. Newgate was one of the London 
prisons ; and condemned criminals were wont to be marched off to prison, 
handcuffed together in pairs, or two a?id two, to keep them from escaping. 



SCENE in. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 45 

and had my pocket pick'd : this house is turn'd bawdy- 
house ; they pick pockets. 

Prince, What didst thou lose, Jack ? 

Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal ? three or four bonds of 
forty pound a-piece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather's. 

Prince. A trifle, some eight-penny matter. 

Host. So I told him, my lord ; and I said I heard your 
Grace say so : and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like 
a foul-mouth'd man as he is ; and said he would cudgel you. 

Prince. What ! he did not? 

Host There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me 
else. 

Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stew'd 
prune ; 17 nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox ; 18 
and, for womanhood, Maid Marian 19 may be the deputy's 
wife of the ward to thee. 20 Go, you thing, go. 

17 Faith here means fidelity. — Falstaffis something touched with a habit 
of looseness in his comparisons. It appears that stewed prunes were a 
favourite relish in houses of ill fame ; and here the thing eaten seems to be 
put for the eater. 

18 " A drawn fox " is commonly said to mean a fox drawn or ousted 
from his cover, when he was supposed to have recourse to all sorts of cun- 
ning artifices, to elude his pursuers. It may be so; but I much prefer 
Heath's explanation : " A fox drawn over the ground, to leave a scent, and 
keep the hounds in exercise while they are not employed in a better chase. 
It is said to have no truth in it, because it deceives the hounds, who run with 
the same eagerness as if they were in pursuit of a real fox." 

19 Maid Marian was the inward partner of Robin Hood, who, in the 
words of Drayton, " to his mistress dear, his loved Marian, was ever con- 
stant known." As this famous couple afterwards became leading charac- 
ters in the morris dance, and as Marian's part was generally sustained by a 
man in woman's clothing, the name grew to be proverbial for a mannish 
woman. 

20 Here to has the force of compared to, or in comparison with. So that 
the meaning seems to be, " In respect of womanhood, you are as much be- 
low maid Marian as she is below the wife of the deputy of the ward." The 



I46 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IIL 

Host. Say, what thing ? what thing ? I am an honest man's 
wife : and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to 
call me so. 

Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say 
otherwise. 

Host. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou ? 

Fal. What beast ! why, an otter. 

Prince. An otter, Sir John, why an otter? 

Fal. Why, she's neither fish nor flesh ; a man knows not 
where to have her. 

Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so : thou or any 
man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou ! 

Prince. Thou say'st true, hostess ; and he slanders thee 
most grossly. 

Host. So he doth you, my lord ; and said this other day 
you ought 21 him a thousand pound. 

Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound ? 

Fal. A thousand pound, Hal ! a million : thy love is 
worth a million ; thou owest me thy love. 

Host. Nay, my lord, he call'd you Jack, and said he would 
cudgel you. 

Fal. Did I, Bardolph? 

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so. 

Fal. Yea, if he said my ring was copper. 

Prince. I say 'tis copper : darest thou be as good as thy 
word now? 

Fal. Why, Hal, thou know'st, as thou art but man, I dare ; 
but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of 
the lion's whelp. 

Mayor, I think, or some other magistrate of the city, had a deputy, or sub 
stitute, in each ward. Of course it was an office of considerable dignity. 
21 Ought and owed are but different forms of the same word. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 147 

Prince. And why not as the lion ? 

Fal. The King himself is to be feared as the lion : dost 
thou think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I 
pray God my girdle break. 22 

Prince. Sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty 
in this bosom of thine ; it is all fill'd up with midriff. 
Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket ! why, thou 
whoreson, impudent, embossed 23 rascal, if there were any 
thing in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, and one poor 
pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded, — if 
thy pocket were enrich'd with any other injuries but these, I 
am a villain : and yet you will stand to it ; you will not 
pocket-up wrong. 24 Art thou not ashamed ! 

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal ? thou know'st, in the state of 
innocency Adam fell ; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do 
in the days of villainy? Thou see'st I have more flesh than 
another man ; and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, 
you pick'd my pocket? 

Prince. It appears so by the story. 



22 " Ungirt, unblest " was an old proverb. And in the language of the 
Old Testament, the girdle is emblematic of authority, and of the qualities 
that inspire respect and reverence. So in Job xii. 18 : " He looseth the 
bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle." Also in Isaiah xi. 5 : 
" And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the gir- 
dle of his reins." So that Falstaff 's meaning seems to be, " May I in my 
old age cease to be reverenced, if I be guilty of such a misplacement of 
reverence." 

23 Emboss' d was often used of certain sores, such as boils and carbuncles, 
when grown to a head. In this sense it might aptly refer to Falstaff 's ro- 
tundity of person. See As You Like It, page 71, note 12. 

24 Pocketing-up wrongs or injuries is an old phrase for tamely putting up 
with affronts, instead of resenting them with manly spirit. Of course the 
Prince has a punning reference to the forecited contents of Sir John's 
pocket. 



148 THE FIRST PART OF ACT lit 

Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee : 25 go, make ready break- 
fast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy 
guests : thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason ; 
thou see'st I am pacified. — Still? Nay, pr'ythee, be gone. 
\_Exit Hostess.] — Now, Hal, to the news at Court : for the 
robbery, lad, how is that answered ? 

Prince. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to 
thee : the money is paid back again. 

Fal. O, I do not like that paying back ; 'tis a double labour. 

Prince. I am good friends with my father, and may do 
any thing. 

Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, 
and do it with unwash'd hands too. 26 

Bard. Do, my lord. 

Prince. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of Foot. 

Fal. I would it had been of Horse. Where shall I find 
one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of 
two-and-twenty or thereabouts ! I am heinously unprovided. 
Well, God be thanked for these rebels ; they offend none 
but the virtuous : I laud them, I praise them. 

Prince. Bardolph, — 

Bard. My lord ? 

Prince. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, 
My brother John ; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. — 

[Exit Bardolph. 
Go, Pointz, to. horse, to horse ; for thou and I 
Have thirty miles to ride ere dinner-time. — [Exit Pointz. 
Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i' the Temple-hall 

25 A characteristic stroke of humorous impudence ; Falstaff making 
believe that he is the one sinned against, and not the sinner. 

26 Doing a thing with unwas/ied hands appears to be much the same as 
doing it without gloves ; that is, thoroughly or unscrupulously. 



SCENE I KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 49 

At two o'clock in th' afternoon : 
There shalt thou know thy charge ; and there receive 
Money and order for their furniture. 
The land is burning ; Percy stands on high ; 
And either they or we must lower lie. \_Exit. 

Fal. Rare words ! brave world ! — Hostess, my breakfast ; 
come : — 
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum ! 27 [Exit. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. 

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas. 

Hot. Well said, my noble Scot : if speaking truth 
In this fine age were not thought flattery, 
Such attribution should the Douglas have, 
As 1 not a soldier of this season's stamp 
Should go so general-current through the world. 
By God, I cannot flatter; I defy 2 
The tongues of soothers ; but a braver place 
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself : 

27 Sir John prefers the leading of his gastric apparatus in the tavern to 
that of the military ensign, or of the drum, which was wont to be decorated 
with the colours of the regiment or battalion : so, as Mr. Joseph Crosby ob- 
serves, " when he has heard the Prince giving orders to get ready for march- 
ing, he gives his orders to the Hostess to get ready for breakfast." 

1 As and that were used indiscriminately. 

2 Defy, again, for refuse or abjure. See page 79, note 22. — Soothers is 
/Loiterers; a frequent usage. 



I50 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT IV. 



Nay, task me to my word ; approve me, 3 lord. 

Doug. Thou art the king of honour : 
No man so potent breathes upon the ground 
But I will beard him. 

Hot. Do so, and 'tis well. — 

Enter a Messenger with letters. 

What letters hast thou there ? — I can but thank you. 

Mess. These letters come from your father. 

Hot. Letters from him ! why comes he not himself? 

Mess. He cannot come, my lord ; he's grievous sick. 

Hot Zwounds ! how has he the leisure to be sick 
In such a justling time? Who leads his power? 
Under whose government come they along? 

Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. 

Wor. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? 

Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth ; 
And at the time of my departure thence 
He was much fear'd by his physicians. 4 

Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole 
Ere he by sickness had been visited : 
His health was never better worth than now. 

Hot. Sick now ! droop now ! this sickness doth infect 
The very life-blood of our enterprise ; 
'Tis catching hither, even to our camp. 
He writes me here, that inward sickness, — 
And that his friends by deputation could not 
So soon be drawn ; nor did he think it meet 
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust 

8 "Approve me " is make trial of me, ox put me to the proof. 
4 This way of using fear was not uncommon. See King Richard the 
Third, page 51, note 21. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 151 

On any soul removed, but on his own. 

Yet doth he give us bold advertisement, 

That with our small conjunction we should on, 

To see how fortune is disposed to us ; 

For, as he writes, there is no quailing now, 

Because the King is certainly possess 'd 5 

Of all our purposes. What say you to it ? 

Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us. 

Hot, A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off: — 
And yet, in faith, 'tis not ; his present want 
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good 
To set the exact wealth of all our states 
All at one cast ? to set so rich a main 
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour ? 
It were not good ; for therein should we read 6 
The very bottom and the soul of hope, 
The very list, 7 the very utmost bound 
Of all our fortunes. 

Doug. Faith, and so we should ; 

Where 8 now remains a sweet reversion ; 
And we may boldly spend upon the hope 
Of what is to come in : 
A comfort of retirement 9 lives in this. 

Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, 
If that the Devil and mischance look big 

5 Possessed is informed. Often so. See Twelfth Night, page 65, note 25. 

6 To see, to learn, to discover are among the old senses of to read. To 
" read the bottom " is to try the uttermost; to exhaust. 

7 List in the sense of edge or border, was quite common. A metaphor 
from the list of cloth. 

8 Where and whereas were used interchangeably in the Poet's time. 

9 Retirement is used with the same meaning as reversion, just before ; 
something to fall back upon. 



152 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IV 

Upon the maidenhood of our affairs. 10 

Wor. But yet I would your father had been here. 

The quality and hair n of our attempt 

Brooks no division : it will be thought 

By some, that know not why he is away, 

That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike 

Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence : 

And think how such an apprehension 

May turn the tide of fearful faction, 

And breed a kind of question in our cause ; 

For well you know we of the offering side 12 

Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement, 

And stop all sight-holes, every loop 13 from whence 

The eye of reason may pry in upon us : 

This absence of your father's draws a curtain, 

That shows the ignorant a kind of fear 14 

Before not dreamt of. 

Hot. Nay, you strain too far. 

I, rather, of his absence make this use : 

It lends a lustre and more great opinion, 15 

A larger dare to our great enterprise, 

Than if the earl were here ; for men must think, 

10 The youth, immaturity of our affairs. 

11 Hair was used metaphorically for complexion, or character. So in 
Beaumont and Fletcher's Nice Valour ; " A lady of my hair cannot want 
pitying." And in an old manuscript play entitled Sir Thomas More : " A 
fellow of your haire is very fitt to be a secretaries follower." 

12 The offering side is the assailing side. 

13 Loop is the same as loop-hole. 

14 Here, again, fear is put for the thing feared. The words draws a cur- 
tain (that is, withdraws) show that the Poet had in mind the personage 
called Fear, who figured on the old stage ; something like what we call a 
fright. 

15 Opinion is fame, reputation, in old English, as in Latin. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 53 

If we, without his help, can make a head 
To push against the kingdom, with his help 
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down. 
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole. 

Doug. As heart can think : there is not such a word 
Spoken in Scotland as this term of fear. 

Enter Sir Richard Vernon. 

Hot. My cousin Vernon ! welcome, by my soul. 

Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. 
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, 
Is marching hitherwards ; with him Prince John. 

Hot. No harm : what more ? 

Ver. And further, I have learn'd. 

The King himself in person is set forth, 
Or hitherwards intendeth speedily, 
With strong and mighty preparation. 

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, 
The nimble-footed 16 madcap Prince of Wales, 
And his comrades, that daff 17 the world aside, 
And bid it pass ? 

Ver, All furnish'd, all in arms ; 

All plumed like estridges that with the wind 
Bate it ; 18 like eagles having lately bathed ; 19 

16 Stowe says of the Prince, " He was passing swift in running, insomuch 
that he, with two other of his lords, without hounds, bow, or other engine, 
would take a wilde bucke, or doe, in a large parke." 

17 Daff is the same as doff, do off. Here it means throw or toss. 

!8 Estridge is the old form of ostrich. The ostrich's plumage might 
naturally occur to the Poet, from its being the cognizance of the Prince. — 
To bate is an old term, meaning to flutter or flap the wings, as an ostrich 
does to aid its speed in running. Here it is used absolutely or indefinitely, 
and not as referring to any antecedent. So the Poet has such expressions 



154 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IV 

Glittering in golden coats, like images ; 
As full of spirit as the month of May, 
And gorgeous as the Sun at midsummer; 
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. 
I saw young Harry — with his beaver 20 on, 
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd — 
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, 



as " fight it out," " smooth'st it so," " revel it" " trip it as you go," and others. 
So that the meaning in the text is, " Their plumage showed as if they had 
been ostriches struggling with, or beating against, the wind." Such is the 
upshot of the explanation lately given by Mr. A. E. Brae ; who supports it 
by the following apt quotation from one of Lord Bacon's letters to Queen 
Elizabeth, 1600: " For now I am like a hawk that bates when I see occasion 
for service, but cannot fly, because I am tied to another's fist." Mr. Brae 
adds, " There can be no doubt that the first branch of the simile is an allu- 
sion to the egregious pluming of the helmets of those days, as represented 
in many an old illumination ; and certainly the streaming of an ostrich's 
plumage, when struggling against the wind, presents a much more vivid 
image than when sailing before it." 

19 Here, again, I gladly avail myself of Mr. Brae's learned comments : 
" Eagles were supposed to renew their youth and vigour by plunging in cer- 
tain springs. In the Bestiare of Philippe de Thaun, the story of the eagles 
seeking a certain fountain in the East, and, when plunged therein three 
times, having their youth and vigour renewed, is declared to be typical of 
baptism." Spenser makes use of the same fable in The Faerie Queene, i. 11, 
where the hero, overcome and desperately wounded in his long fight with 
the " old Dragon," at last falls back into " a springing well, full of great ver- 
tues, and for med'cine good," and lies there all the night. Una, sorely dis- 
tressed and dismayed at his fall, watches, to see the issue, till morning, when 

At last she saw, where he upstarted brave 
Out of the well, wherein he drenched lay ; 
As eagle fresh out of the ocean wave, 
Where he hath left his plumes all hoary gray, 
And deckt himselfe with feathers youthly gay. 

20 The beaver of the helmet was a movable piece, which lifted up to 
enable the wearer to drink or to breathe more freely. Of course in time of 
action it was drawn down over the face. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 155 

And vault it with such ease 21 into his seat, 
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, 
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 
And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 

Hot. No more, no more : worse than the Sun in March, 
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come ; 
They come like sacrifices in their trim, 
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war, 
All hot and bleeding, will we offer them : 
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit 
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire 
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, 
And yet not ours. — Come, let me taste 22 my horse, 
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt, 
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales : 
Harry and Harry shall, hot horse to horse, 
Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse. — 
O, that Glendower were come ! 

Ver. There is more news : 

I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along, 
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days. 

Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet. 

Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound. 

Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach unto ? 

Ver. To thirty thousand. 

Hot. Forty let it be : 

My father and Glendower being both away, 
The powers of us may serve so great a day. 



21 Another instance like that remarked in note 18. 

22 The Poet repeatedly uses to taste for to try. See Twelfth Night. 
page iot;, note 21. 



156 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IV. 

Come, let us take a muster 23 speedily : 
Doomsday is near ; die all, die merrily. 

Doug. Talk not of dying : I am out of fear 
Of death or death's hand for this one half-year. [Exeunt. 



Scene II. — A public Road near Coventry. 
Enter Falstaff and Bardolph. 

Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a 
bottle of sack : our soldiers shall march through ; we'll to 
Sutton-Co'flP 1 to-night. 

Bard. Will you give me money, captain ? 

Fal. Lay out, lay out. 

Bard. This bottle makes an angel. 2 

Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour ; and if it make 
twenty, take them all ; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieu- 
tenant Peto meet me at the town's end. 

Bard. I will, captain : farewell. [Exit. 

Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused 
gurnet. 3 I have misused the King's press 4 damnably. I have 

23 To take a muster is to ascertain the number of troops assembled ; as 
we speak of taking a census. 

1 Sutton- Co' fit' is a contracted form of Sutton- Coalfield. 

2 This angel was a gold coin, which seems to have borne much the same 
relation to the English currency in Shakespeare's time, as the sovereign 
does now. — When Falstaff says "Lay out, lay out," he probably hands 
Bardolph the bottle, — a piece of plate, perhaps, which he has obtained 
in much the same way as he reckons upon getting his soldiers supplied with 
linen for their shirtless backs. 

3 The gurnet or gurnard, was a fish of the piper kind. It was probably 
deemed a vulgar dish when soused or pickled, hence soused gurnet was a 
common term of reproach. 

4 That is., misused the King's commission for impressing men into the 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I 5/ 

got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred 
and odd pounds. I press 'd me none but good householders, 
yeomen's sons ; inquired me out contracted bachelors, such 
as had been ask'd twice on the banns ; 5 such a commodity 
of warm slaves as had as lief hear the Devil as a drum ; such 
as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a 
hurt wild-duck. I press'd me none but such toasts- and-but- 
ter, 6 with hearts in their bodies no bigger than pins'-heads, 
and they have bought out their services ; and now my whole 
charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen 
of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted 
cloth, where the glutton's dogs lick his sores ; 7 and such as, 
indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded unjust serving- 
men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, 
and ostlers trade-fallen ; the cankers of a calm world and a 
long peace ; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an 
old faced ancient : 8 and such have I, to fill up the rooms 

military service. The King's press, in old times, was just about equivalent 
to what we have known as Uncle Sam's draft. 

5 To ask upon the banns, to ask the banns, and to publish the banns, 
are all phrases of the same import. The law, I believe, required that par- 
ties intending marriage should have the banns asked three times, in as 
many weeks, before the ceremony could take place. So that when the 
banns had been asked twice, the "joyful day " was pretty near. 

6 So in Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, 1617 : " Londoners, and all within 
the sound of Bow bell, are in reproach called cockneys, and eaters of but- 
tered toasts!' And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money : "They 
love young toasts and butter, Bow-bell suckers." 

7 The painted cloth here spoken of is the tapestry with which the walls 
of rooms used to be lined, and on which it was customary to have short 
sentences inscribed, and certain incidents of Scripture depicted, so as to 
combine ornament and instruction. See As You Like It, page 89, note 38. 

8 Ancient is an old corruption of ensign, and was used both for the stand- 
ard and the bearer of it. Falstaff here means an old patched flag. — 
" Revolted tapsters " are tapsters who have run away from their masters, 
and who were bound by contract or indenture to serve as apprentices for a 



158 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IV. 

of them that have bought out their services, that you would 
think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately 
come, from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A 
mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded 
all the gibbets, and press'd the dead bodies. No eye hath 
seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with 
them, that's flat : nay, and the villains march wide betwixt 
the legs, as if they had gyves on ; for, indeed, I had the most 
of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all 
my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tack'd to- 
gether and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat 
without sleeves ; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from 
my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper of 
Daventry. But that's all one ; they'll find linen enough on 
every hedge. 

Enter Prince Henry and Westmoreland. 

Prince. How now, blown Jack ! how now, quilt ! 9 
Fal. What, Hal ! how now, mad wag ! what a devil dost 
thou in Warwickshire? — My good Lord of Westmoreland, I 
cry you mercy : 10 I thought your honour had already been at 
Shrewsbury. 

West. Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were 
there, and you too ; but my powers are there already. The 
King, I can tell you, looks for us all : we must away all, to- 
night. 

term of years. Such is Francis, the " underskinker," in this play. — Nash, in 
his Pierce Penniless, 1592, has an expression like one in the text : " All the 
canker-worms that breed in the rust of peace." 

9 Blown and quilt both have reference to Falstaff 's plumpness ; only the 
one supposes him to be plump with wind, the other, with cotton. 

10 " I ask your pardon." Falstaff is pretending not to have recognized 
his lordship at first, and so makes an apology. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 59 

Fal. Tut, never fear me : I am as vigilant as a cat to steal 
cream. 

Prince. I think, to steal cream, indeed ; for thy theft hath 
already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows 
are these that come after? 

Fal. Mine, Hal, mine. 

Prince. I did never see such pitiful rascals. 

Fal. Tut, tut; good enough to toss; 11 food for powder, 
food for powder ; they'll fill a pit as well as better : tush, man, 
mortal men, mortal men. 

West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding 
poor and bare, — too beggarly. 

Fal. Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had 
that ; and, for their bareness, I am sure they never learn 'd 
that of me. 

Prince. No, I'll be sworn ; unless you call three fingers 
on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste : Percy is already 
in the field. [Exit. 

Fal. What, is the King encamp'd? 

West. He is, Sir John : I fear we shall stay too long. 

\_Exit. 

Fal. Well, 
To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast 
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. \Exit. 

Scene III. — The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. 

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon. 

Hot. We'll fight with him to-night. 

Wor. It may not be. 

H Good enough to toss upon pikes ; a war phrase of the time. 



l6o THE FIRST PART OF ACT IV 

Doug. You give him, then, advantage. 

Ver. Not a whit. 

Hot. Why say you so ? looks he not for supply ? 

Ver. So do we. 

Hot. His is certain, ours is doubtful. 

Wor. Good cousin, be advised ; stir not to-night. 

Ver. Do not, my lord. 

Doug. You do not counsel well : 

You speak it out of fear and cold heart. 

Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas : by my life, — 
And I dare well maintain it with my life, — 
If well-respected honour bid me on, 
I hold as little counsel with weak fear 
As you, my lord, or any Scot that lives : 
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle 
Which of us fears. 

Doug. Yea, or to-night. 

Ver. Content. 

Hot. To-night, say I. 

Ver. Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much. 
Being men of such great leading as you are, 
That you foresee not what impediments 
Drag back our expedition : certain Horse 
Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up : 
Your uncle Worcester's Horse came but to-day ; 
And now their pride and mettle is asleep, 
Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, 
That not a horse is half the half himself. 

Hot. So are the horses of the enemy 
In general, journey-bated and brought low : 
The better part of ours are full of rest. 

Wor. The number of the King exceedeth ours i 



SCENE in. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. l6l 

For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in. 

\_The Trumpet sounds a parley. 

Enter Sir Walter Blunt. 

Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the King, 
If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect. 

Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt ; and would to God 
You were of our determination ! 
Some of us love you well ; and even those some 
Envy your great deservings and good name, 
Because you are not of our quality, 1 
But stand against us like an enemy. 

Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand so, 
So long as out of limit and true rule 
You stand against anointed majesty ! 
But, to my charge : The King hath sent to know 
The nature of your griefs ; 2 and whereupon 
You conjure from the breast of civil peace 
Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land 
Audacious cruelty. If that the King 
Have any way your good deserts forgot, 
Which he confesseth to be manifold, 
He bids you name your griefs ; and with all speed 
You shall have your desires with interest, 

1 The Poet in several instances uses quality in the classical sense of kind, 
nature, or condition. — I am not quite clear as to the meaning of envy here. 
Taken in its present sense, it will hardly cohere with the logic implied in 
because. In Shakespeare, the more common meaning of envy (substantive) 
is malice or hatred. Probably the verb is here used in the sense of to hate ; 
as, in theological and political strifes, the very worth of those who are not 
on our side generally makes us hate them the more ; or, which comes to 
the same thing, makes us disparage their good name. 

2 Griefs for grievances ; the effect for the cause. 



1 62 THE FIRST PART OF ACT IM 

And pardon absolute for yourself and these 
Herein misled by your suggestion. 3 

Hot. The King is kind ; and well we know the King 
Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. 
My father and my uncle and myself 
Did give him that same royalty he wears ; 
And — when he was not six-and-twenty strong, 
Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, 
A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home — 
My father gave him welcome to the shore : 
And — when he heard him swear and vow to God, 
He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, 
To sue his livery and beg his peace, 4 
With tears of innocence and terms of zeal — 
My father, in kind heart and pity moved, 
Swore him assistance, and perform'd it too. 
Now, when the lords and barons of the realm 
Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, 
The more and less 5 came in with cap and knee ; 
Met him in boroughs, cities, villages, 
Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, 
Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths, 
Gave him their heirs as pages, follow'd him 

3 The Poet commonly uses suggestion for temptation or instigation. 

4 To sue one's livery and to beg one's peace are old law terms, and are 
here used with strict propriety. On the death of a person who held by the 
tenure of knight's service, his heir, if under age, became a ward of the 
king's ; but, if of age, he had a right to sue out a writ of ouster le main, that 
the king's hand might be taken off, and the land delivered to him. At the 
same time he offered his homage, that being the condition of his tenure ; 
which was to beg the peaceable enjoyment of his lands. When Bolingbroke 
was in exile, his father having died, the King denied him this right, and 
seized the lands to his own use. See Richard the Second, page 76, note 27. 

5 That is, the great and the small ; men of all ranks. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. l6j 

Even at the heels in golden multitudes. 
He presently — as greatness knows itself 6 — 
Steps me a little higher than his vow 
Made to my father, while his blood was poor, 
Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg ; 
And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform 
Some certain edicts and some strait decrees 
That lie too heavy on the commonwealth ; 
Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep 
Over his country's wrongs ; and, by this face, 
This seeming brow of justice, did he win 
The hearts of all that he did angle for : 
Proceeded further ; cut me off the heads 
Of all the favourites, that the absent King 
In deputation left behind him here 
When he was personal in the Irish war. 7 

Blunt Tut, I came not to hear this. 

Hot Then to the point : 
In short time after, he deposed the King ; 
Soon after that, deprived him of his life ; 
And, in the neck of that, task'd 8 the whole State : 
To make that worse, suffer'd his kinsman March 
(Who is, if every owner were well placed, 
Indeed his king) to be engaged 9 in Wales, 

6 Meaning when he saw what greatness was within his reach, or knew 
how great he might be. 

7 Commanding in person in the Irish war. 

8 Task'd is here used for taxed. The usage, though common, was not 
strictly correct; a task being more properly a tribute or subsidy. Thus 
Philips, in his World of Words : " Tasck is an old British word, signifying 
tribute, from whence haply cometh our word task, which is a duty or labour 
imposed upon any one." 

9 To be engaged is to be pledged as a hostage. So in v. 2 : " And West- 
moreland that was engaged did bear it." See page 77, note 15. 



I64 THE FIRST PART OF 



ACT IV. 



There without ransom to lie forfeited ; 

Disgraced me in my happy victories, 

Sought to entrap me by intelligence ; 

Rated my uncle from the Council-board ; 

In rage dismiss 'd my father from the Court ; 

Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong ; 

And, in conclusion, drove us to seek out 

This head of safety ; and withal to pry 

Into his title, the which now we find 

Too indirect for long continuance. 

Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the King? 

Hot. Not so, Sir Walter : we'll withdraw awhile. 
Go to the King ; and let there be impawn'd 
Some surety for a safe return again, 
And in the morning early shall my uncle 
Bring him our purposes : and so, farewell. 

Blunt. I would you would accept of grace and love. 

Hot. And may be so we shall. 

Blunt. Pray God you do. 

\_Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — York. A Room in the Archbishops Palace. 

Enter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael. 

Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael ; bear this sealed brief 1 
With winged haste to the Lord Marshal ; 2 
This to my cousin Scroop ; and all the rest 
To whom they are directed. If you knew 

1 A brief is a short writing, as a letter. 

2 The office of Lord Marshal was hereditary in the Mowbray family. 
The Lord Marshal at this time was Thomas Mowbray. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 65 

How much they do import, you would make haste. 

Sir M. My good lord, 
I guess their tenour. 

Arch. Like enough you do. 

To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day 
Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men 
Must bide the touch ; for, sir, at Shrewsbury, 
As I am truly given to understand, 
The King, with mighty and quick-raised power, 
Meets with Lord Harry : and, I fear, Sir Michael, 
What with the sickness of Northumberland, 
Whose power was in the first proportion, 
And what with Owen Glendower's absence thence, 
Who with them was a rated sinew too, 3 
And comes not in, o'er-ruled by prophecies, — 
I fear the power of Percy is too weak 
To wage an instant trial with the King. 

Sir M. Why, my good lord, you need not fear ; there's 
Douglas 
And Lord Mortimer. 

Arch. No, Mortimer's not there. 

Sir M. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy, 
And there's my Lord of Worcester ; and a head 
Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen. 

Arch. And so there is : but yet the King hath drawn 
The special head of all the land together ; 
The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, 
The noble Westmoreland, and warlike Blunt ; 
And many more corrivals and dear men 
Of estimation and command in arms. 

3 A strength on which they reckoned. 



1 66 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

Sir M. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed. 

Arch. I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear ; 
And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed : 
For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King 
Dismiss his power, he means to visit us, 
For he hath heard of our confederacy ; 
And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him : 
Therefore make haste. I must go write again 
To other friends ; and so, farewell, Sir Michael. \_Exeunt. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — The King's Camp near Shrewsbury. 

Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Sir Walter 
Blunt, and Sir John Falstaff. 

King. How bloodily the Sun begins to peer 
Above yon bosky 1 hill ! the day looks pale 
At his distemperature. 

Prince. The southern wind 

Doth play the trumpet to his purposes ; 
And by his hollow whistling in the leaves 
Foretells a tempest and a blustering day. 

King. Then with the losers let it sympathize, 
For nothing can seem foul to those that win. — 

\The Trumpet sounds. 

1 Bosky is woody, bushy. So in Milton's Comus : 

I know each lane, and every alley green, 
Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, 
And every bosky bourn from side to side. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 67 

Enter Worcester and Vernon. 

How now, my Lord of Worcester ! 'tis not well 
That you and I should meet upon such terms 
As now we meet. You have deceived our trust ; 
And made us doff our easy robes of peace, 
To crush our old limbs 2 in ungentle steel : 
This is not well, my lord, this is not well. 
What say you to't? will you again unknit 
This churlish knot of all-abhorred war ? 
And move in that obedient orb 3 again 
Where you did give a fair and natural light ; 
And be no more an exhaled meteor, 
A prodigy of fear, and a portent 
Of broached mischief to the unborn times ? 

Wor. Hear me, my liege : 
For mine own part, I could be well content 
To entertain the lag-end of my life 
With quiet hours ; 4 for, I .do protest, 
I have not sought the day of this dislike. 

King. You have not sought it ! why, how comes it, then ? 

Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. 

Prince. Peace, chewet, 5 peace ! 

2 The King was at this time but thirty-six years old. But in his develop- 
ment of historical characters Shakespeare had little regard to dates, so he 
could bring the substance of historic truth within the conditions of dramatic 
effect ; and he here anticipates several years in the King's life, that he may 
make Prince Henry old enough for the course of action ascribed to him. 

3 Obedient orb is orbit of obedience. The Poet often has orb for orbit. 

4 Hours is here a dissyllable. 

5 The meaning of chewet is thus explained from Bacon's Natural His- 
tory : " As for chuets, which are likewise minced meat, instead of butter and 
fat, it were good to moisten them partly with cream, or almond and pistachio 
milk." 



1 68 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V 

Wor. It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks 
Of favour from myself and all our House ; 
And yet I must remember you, my lord, 
We were the first and dearest of your friends. 
For you my staff of office did I break 
In Richard's time ; and posted day and night 
To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand, 
When yet you were in place and in account 
Nothing so strong and fortunate as I. 
It was myself, my brother, and his son, 
That brought you home, and boldly did outdare 
The dangers of the time. You swore to us, — 
And you did swear that oath at Doncaster, — 
That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state ; 
Nor claim no further than your new-fall'n right, 
The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster : 
To this we swore our aid. But in short space 
It rain'd down fortune showering on your head ; 
And such a flood of greatness fell on you, — 
What with our help, what with the absent King, 
What with the injuries of a wanton time, 
The seeming sufferances that you had borne, 
And the contrarious winds that held the King 
So long in his unlucky Irish wars 
That all in England did repute him dead, — 
And, from this swarm of fair advantages, 
You took occasion to be quickly woo'd 
To gripe the general sway into your hand ; 
Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster ; 
And, being fed by us, you used us so 
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo-bird, 6 

6 The cuckoo has a habit of laying her eggs in the hedge-sparrow's nest, 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 169 

Useth the sparrow ; did oppress our nest ; 

Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk, 

That even our love durst not come near your sight 

For fear of swallowing ; but with nimble wing 

We were enforced, for safety-sake, to fly 

Out of your sight, and raise this present head : 

Whereby we stand opposed 7 by such means 

As you yourself have forged against yourself, 

By unkind usage, dangerous countenance, 

And violation of all faith and troth 

Sworn to us in your younger enterprise. 

King. These things, indeed, you have articulate, 8 
Proclaim'd at market- crosses, read in churches, 
To face the garment of rebellion 
With some fine colour that may please the eye 
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, 9 

and leaving them there to be hatched by the owner. The cuckoo chickens 
are then cherished, fed, and cared for by the sparrow as her own children, 
until they grow so large as to " oppress her nest," and become so greedy and 
voracious as to frighten and finally drive away their feeder from her own 
home. Something of the same kind is affirmed of the cuckoo and titlark 
in Holland's Pliny, which first came out in 1601, some years after this play 
was written : " The Titling, therefore, that sitteth, being thus deceived, 
hatcheth the egge, and bringeth up the chicke of another birde ; and this 
she doth so long, untill the young cuckow, being once fledge and readie to 
flie abroad, is so bold as to seize upon the old titling, and eat her up that 
hatched her." Shakespeare seems to have been the first to notice how the 
hedge-sparrow was wont to be treated by that naughty bird. — Gull here 
means "unfledged nestling." So several editors say; still I doubt it, and 
suspect it has the sense of the Latin gulo, a voracious eater. 

7 "We stand opposed " here means " we stand in opposition to you." 

8 Articulate is here used in the past tense for articulated, as in the pas- 
sage from Holland's Pliny in the preceding note : " Being once fiedge and 
readie to flie abroad." To articulate is to set down in articles. 

9 Discontents for malcontents. So, again, in Antony and Cleopatra, i. 4: 
" To the ports the discontents repair." 



I/O THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

Which gape and rub the elbow at the news 
Of hurlyburly innovation : 
And never yet did insurrection want 
Such water-colours to impaint his cause ; 
Nor moody beggars, starving for a time 
Of pellmell havoc and confusion. 

Prince. In both our armies there is many a soul 
Shall pay full dearly for this encounter, 
If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew, 
The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world 
In praise of Henry Percy : by my hopes, 
This present enterprise set off his head, 10 
I do not think a braver gentleman, 
More active-valiant or more valiant-young, 
More daring or more bold, is now alive 
To grace this latter age with noble deeds. 
For my part, — I may speak it to my shame, — 
I have a truant been to chivalry ; 
And so I hear he doth account me too : 
Yet this before my father's Majesty, — 
I am content that he shall take the odds 
Of his great name and estimation, 
And will, to save the blood on either side, 
Try fortune with him in a single fight. 

King. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee, 
Albeit, considerations infinite 
Do make against it. — No, good Worcester, no ; 
We love our people well ; even those we love 
That are misled upon your cousin's part ; 
And, will they take the offer of our grace, 

10 His present rebellion being excepted or struck off from his record. 



SCENE I. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. I/I 

Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man 
Shall be my friend again, and I'll be his : 
So tell your cousin, and then bring me word 
What he will do : but, if he will not yield, 
Rebuke and dread correction wait on us, 
And they shall do their office. So, be gone ; 
We will not now be troubled with reply : 
We offer fair ; take it advisedly. 

\_Exeu71t Worcester and Vernon. 

Prince. It will not be accepted, on my life : 
The Douglas and the Hotspur both together 
Are confident against the world in arms. 

King. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge ; 
For, on their answer, will we set on them : 
And God befriend us, as our cause is just ! 

\_Exeunt the King, Blunt, and Prince John. 

Fal. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride 
me, 11 so ; 'tis a point of friendship. 

Prince. Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friend- 
ship. Say thy prayers, and farewell. 

Fal. I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well. 

Prince. Why, thou owest God a death. \_Exit. 

Fal. 'Tis not due yet ; I would be loth to pay Him before 
His day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not 
on me ? Well, 'tis no matter ; honour pricks me on. Yea, 
but how if honour prick me off when I come on ? how then ? 
Can honour set-to a leg ? no : or an arm ? no : or take away 
the grief of a wound ? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, 
then? no. What is honour? a word. What is that word, 



11 In the battle of Agincourt, Prince Henry, then king, did this act of 
friendship for his brother, the Duke of Gloster. 



1 72 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

honour? air. A trim reckoning! — Who hath it? he that 
died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it ? no. Doth he hear it ? 
no. Is it insensible, then ? yea, to the dead. But will it not 
live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. 
Therefore I'll none of it : honour is a mere scutcheon : 12 — 
and so ends my catechism. \Exit 

Scene II. — The Rebel Camp. 
Enter Worcester and Vernon. 

Wor. O, no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard, 
The liberal-kind offer of the King. 

Ver. 'Twere best he did. 

Wor. Then are we all undone. 

It is not possible, it cannot be, 
The King should keep his word in loving us ; 
He will suspect us still, and find a time 
To punish this offence in other faults : 
Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes ; 
For treason is but trusted like the fox, 
Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd, and lock'd up, 
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. 1 ' 
Look how we can, or sad or merrily, 
Interpretation will misquote our looks ; 
And we shall feed like oxen at a stall, 
The better cherish'd, still the nearer death. 
My nephew's trespass may be well forgot : 

12 That is, a mere heraldic emblazonry, that can do nothing. 

l " A wild trick " is a trick of wildness, or of running wild, inherited from 
his ancestors. In fact, the fox, I believe, cannot be so tamed but that he 
will run wild again on the first opportunity. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 173 

It hath th' excuse of youth and heat of blood, 

And an adopted name of privilege, — 

A hare-brain'd Hotspur, govern'd by a spleen : 

All his offences lie upon my head 

And on his father's : we did train him on ; 

And, his corruption being ta'en from us, 

We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all. 

Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know, 

In any case, the offer of the King. 

Ver. Deliver what you will, I'll say 'tis so. 
Here comes your cousin. 

Enter Hotspur and Douglas ; Officers and Soldiers behind. 

Hot. My uncle is return'd : deliver up 
My Lord of Westmoreland. 2 — Uncle, what news ? 

Wor. The King will bid you battle presently. 

Doug. Defy him by the Lord of Westmoreland. 

Hot. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so. 

Doug. Marry, I shall, and very willingly. \Exit 

Wor. There is no seeming mercy in the King. 

Hot. Did you beg any? God forbid ! 

Wor. I told him gently of our grievances, 
Of his oath-breaking ; which he mended thus, 
By new-forswearing that he is forsworn : 
He calls us rebels, traitors ; and will scourge 
With haughty arms this hateful name in us. 

Re-enter Douglas. 

Doug. Arm, gentlemen; to arms ! for I have thrown 
A brave defiance in King Henry's teeth, 

2 The Earl of Westmoreland had been retained by Hotspur in pledge 
for the safe return of Worcester. 



174 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

And Westmoreland, that was engaged, did bear it ; 
Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on. 

Wor. The Prince of Wales stepp'd forth before the King, 
And, nephew, challenged you to single fight. 

Hot. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads ; 
And that no man might draw short breath to-day 
But I and Harry Monmouth ! 3 Tell me, tell me, 
How show'd his tasking? 4 seem'd it in contempt? 

Ver. No, by my soul : I never in my life 
Did hear a challenge urged more modestly, 
Unless a brother should a brother dare 
To gentle exercise and proof of arms. 
He gave you all the duties of a man ; 
Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue ; 
Spoke your deservings like a chronicle ; 
Making you ever better than his praise, 
By still dispraising praise valued with you : 
And, which became him like a prince indeed, 
He made a blushing cital 5 of himself ; 
And chid his truant youth with such a grace, 
As if he master'd there a double spirit, 
Of teaching and of learning instantly. 6 
There did he pause : but let me tell the world, 
If he outlive the envy 7 of this day, 
England did never owe so sweet a hope, 

3 Prince Henry was so surnamed from the town of Monmouth in Wales, 
where he was born. 

4 Tasking was used for reproof. We still say " he took him to task." 

5 To cite is to quote, allege, or mention any passage or incident. 

6 Instantly has here the sense of at the same time. — Master'd is equiva- 
lent to was master of. 

7 Here, as usually in old English, envy means malice. — Owe, in the next 
line, is own. Continually so in Shakespeare. 



SCENE II. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 75 

So much misconstrued in his wantonness. 

Hot. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured 
Upon his follies : never did I hear 
Of any prince so wild o' liberty. 8 
But be he as he will, yet once ere night 
I will embrace him with a soldier's arm, 
That he shall shrink under my courtesy. — 
Arm, arm with speed : and, fellows, soldiers, friends, 
Better consider what you have to do 
Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue, 
Can lift your blood up with persuasion. 9 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. My lord, here are letters for you. 

Hot. I cannot read them now. — 
O gentlemen, the time of life is short ! 
To spend that shortness basely were too long, 
If life did ride upon a dial's point, 
Still ending at th' arrival of an hour. 10 
An if we live, we live to tread on kings ; 
If die, brave death, when princes die with us ! 
Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair, 
When the intent of bearing them is just. 

Enter another Messenger. 

Mess. My lord, prepare ; the King comes on apace. 

8 " So wild of liberty" plainly means using his freedom so wantonly. 

9 A rather strange shaping of language, though not more so than many 
other passages in Shakespeare. It may be translated something thus : 
" You can better kindle your spirits to the work by thinking with yourselves 
what is to be done, than my small power of speech can heat your courage 
up for the fight by any attempts at persuasion." 

10 The meaning is, that if life were vastly shorter than it is, if it were 
measured by an hour, it were still too long to be spent basely. 



I76 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

Hot. I thank him, that he cuts me from my tale, 
For I profess not talking ; only this, 
Let each man do his best : and here draw I 
A sword, whose temper I intend to stain 
With the best blood that I can meet withal 
In the adventure of this perilous day. 
Now, Esperance / n Percy ! and set on. 
Sound all the lofty instruments of war, 
And by that music let us all embrace ; 
For, Heaven to Earth, 12 some of us never shall 
A second time do such a courtesy. 

\_The trumpets sound. They embrace, and exeunt 



Scene III. — Plain between the Camps. 

Excursions, and Parties fighting. Alarum to the battle. 
Then enter Douglas and Sir Walter Blunt, meeting. 

Blunt. What is thy name, that in the battle thus 
Thou crossest me ? what honour dost thou seek 
Upon my head ? 

Doug. Know, then, my name is Douglas ; 

And I do haunt thee in the battle thus 
Because some tell me that thou art a king. 

Blunt. They tell thee true. 

Doug. The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought 
Thy likeness ; for, instead of thee, King Harry, 

11 Esperance, or Esperanza, was the motto of the Percy family. Espe- 
ranci is here a word of four syllables. So in Holinshed : " Then suddenlie 
blew the trumpets, the kings part crieng S. George upon them, the adver- 
saries cried Esperance, Persie, and so the two armies furiouslie joined." 

12 A wager of Heaven against Earth is probably meant. 



SCENE III. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 77 

This sword hath ended him : so shall it thee, 
Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner. 

Blunt. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot j 
And thou shalt find a king that will revenge 
Lord Stafford's death. [They fight, #«</ Blunt is slain. 

Enter Hotspur. 

Hot. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, 
I never had triumphed o'er a Scot. 

Doug. All's done, all's won ; here breathless lies the King. 

Hot. Where? 

Doug. Here. 

Hot. This, Douglas ? no ; I know this face full well : 
A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt ; 
Semblably furnish'd like the King himself. 

Doug. A fool go with thy soul, where 're it goes ! 
A borrow'd title hast thou bought too dear : 
Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king ? 

Hot. The King hath many masking in his coats. 

Doug. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats; 
I'll murder all his wardrobe piece by piece, 
Until I meet the King. 

Hot. Up, and away ! 

Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day. [Exeunt. 

Alamms. Enter Falstaff. 

Fal. Though I could 'scape shot-free at London, I fear 
the shot here ; here's no scoring but upon the pate. 1 — Soft ! 



1 Falstaff has tavern thoughts and customs running in his mind ; the 
mode of an inn-keeper's accounts being to score the items either by chalk- 
marks made upon the wall, or by notches cut in a stick. — There is a pun 



I ?8 THE FIRST PART OF ACT Y. 

who are you ? Sir Walter Blunt : there's honour for you ! 
here's no vanity ! 2 I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy 
too : God keep lead out of me ! I need no more weight than 
mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they 
are peppered : there's but three of my hundred and fifty left 
alive ; and they are for the town's end, 3 to beg during life. 
But who comes here ? 

Enter Prince Henry. 

Prince. What, stand'st thou idle here ? lend me thy sword : 
Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff 
Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies, 
Whose deaths as yet are unrevenged : I pr'ythee, 
Lend me thy sword. 

Fal. O Hal, I pr'ythee, give me leave to breathe awhile. 
Turk Gregory 4 never did such deeds in arms as I have done 
this day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure. 

Prince. He is, indeed ; and living to kill thee. 
I pr'ythee, lend me thy sword. 

Fal. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou gett'st 
not my sword ; but take my pistol, if thou wilt. 

implied in shot-free. Sir John was shot-free at Eastcheap, though not scot- 
free : here he is scot-free, but not exactly shot-free. It seems likely, from 
this passage, that in scot the c was soft in the Poet's time, so as to give a pro- 
nunciation the same as in shot. To pay one's shot is to pay one's score, that 
is, bill or reckoning, at a tavern ; and to be shot-free is to have one's enter 
tainment without charge. 

2 The negative, " no vanity," is here used ironically, to indicate the excess 
of a thing ; a frequent usage in colloquial speech. 

3 The town's end probably means the poor-house ; or perhaps a hospital 
for war-maimed soldiers. 

4 That is, Pope Gregory the Seventh, called Hildebrand. Fox, in bis 
Martyrology, had made Gregory so odious that the Protestants would be 
well pleased to hear him thus characterized, as uniting the attributes of their 
two great enemies, the Turk and the Pope, in one. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 79 

Prince. Give it me : what, is it in the case ? 

Fal. Ay, Hal. Tis hot, 'tis hot : there's that will sack a 
city. \The Prince draws out a bottle of sack. 

Prince. What, is't a time to jest and dally now? 

[ Throws it at him, and exit. 

Fal. Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him. 5 If he do 
come in my way, so ; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, 
let him make a carbonado 6 of me. I like not such grinning 
honour as Sir Walter hath : give me life ; which if I can 
save, so ; if not, honour comes unlooked for, and there's an 
end. \_Exit. 

Scene IV. — Another Part of the Field. 

Alarums. Excursions. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, 
Lancaster, and Westmoreland. 

King. I pr'ythee, 
Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleed'st too much. — 
Lord John of Lancaster, go you with him. 

Lan. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too. 

Prince. I do beseech your Majesty, make up, 
Lest your retirement do amaze * your friends. 

King. I will do so. — 
My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent. 

West. Come, my lord, I will lead you to your tent. 

5 "Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him," is addressed to the Prince as 
he goes out ; the rest of the speech is soliloquy. — It would seem from this, 
that pierce and the first syllable of Percy were sounded alike. 

6 A carbonado is a piece of meat slashed into stripes for roasting or broil- 
ing. A piece of pork is commonly carbonadoed on the rind side, to be 
baked with beans. 

1 Amaze is here used in its original sense of to bewilder or cast into a 
maze. — Make up has the force of advance, the opposite of retire. 



1 80 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

Prince. Lead me, my lord ? I do not need your help : 
And God forbid, a shallow scratch should drive 
The Prince of Wales from such a field as this, 
Where stain'd nobility lies trodden on, 
And rebels' arms triumph in massacres ! 2 

Lan. We breathe too long : — come, cousin Westmoreland, 
Our duty this way lies ; for God's sake, come. 

\_Exeunt Lancaster and Westmoreland. 

Prince. By Heaven, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster ; 
I did not think thee lord of such a spirit : 
Before, I loved thee as a brother, John ; 
But now I do respect thee as my soul. 

King. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point 
With lustier maintenance than I did look for 
Of such an ungrown warrior. 

Prince. O, this boy 

Lends mettle to us all ! [Exit. 

Alarums. Enter Douglas. 

Doug. Another king ! they grow like Hydra's heads : 
I am the Douglas, fatal to all those 
That wear those colours on them. — What art thou, 
That counterfeit'st the person of a king? 

King. The King himself; who, Douglas, grieves at heart, 
So many of his shadows thou hast met, 
And not the very King. I have two boys 
Seek Percy and thyself about the field : 

2 This battle took place in July, 1403, when Prince Henry was but sixteen 
years old. It appears, however, that, boy as he was, he did the work of a 
man. Holinshed relates that early in the battle he was hurt in the face 
with an arrow, insomuch that several tried to withdraw him from the field ; 
but that he, fearing the effect this might have on his men, insisted on staying 
with them to the last, and never ceased to fight where the battle was hottest. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. l8l 

But, seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily, 
I will assay thee ; so, defend thyself. 

Doug. I fear thou art another counterfeit ; 
And yet, in faith, thou bear'st thee like a king : 
But mine I'm sure thou art, whoe'er thou be, 
And thus I win thee. 3 

\They fight ; the King being in danger, re-enter P. Henry. 

Prince. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like 
Never to hold it up again ! the spirits 
Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arm : 
It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee ; 
Who never promiseth but he means to pay. — 

[ They fight : Douglas flies. 
Cheerly, my lord : how fares your Grace ? 
Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent, 
And so hath Clifton : I'll to Clifton straight. 

King. Stay, and breathe awhile : 
Thou hast redeem 'd thy lost opinion ; 4 
And show'd thou makest some tender of my life, 
In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me. 

Prince. O God, they did me too much injury 
That ever said I hearken'd for your death ! 
If it were so, I might have let alone 
Th' insulting hand of Douglas over you, 

3 The matter is thus delivered by Holinshed : " This battell lasted three 
long houres, with indifferent fortune on both parts, till at length the king, 
crieng saint George, victorie, brake the arraie of his enemies, and adven- 
tured so farre, that (as some write) the earle Dowglas strake him downe, 
and at that instant slue sir Walter Blunt and three others, apparalled in the 
kings sute and clothing, saieng, I marvell to see so many kings thus sud- 
denlie arise, one in the necke of an other. The king indeed was raised, and 
did that daie manie a noble feat of armes ; for, as it is written, he slue that 
daie with his owne hands, six and thirtie persons of his enemies." 

4 Opinion, again, for reputation. See page 1^2, note jq. 



1 82 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

Which would have been as speedy in your end 
As all the poisonous potions in the world, 
And saved the treacherous labour of your son. 

King. Make up to Clifton : I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey. 

\_Exit. 
Enter Hotspur. 

Ho . If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth. 

Prince. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name. 

Hot. My name is Harry Percy. 

Prince. Why, then I see 

A very valiant rebel of that name. 
I am the Prince of Wales ; and think not, Percy, 
To share with me in glory any more : 
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere ; 
Nor can one England brook a double reign, 
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales. 

Hot. Nor shall it, Harry ; for the hour is come 
To end the one of us ; and would to God 
Thy name in arms were now as great as mine ! 

Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from thee ; 
And all the budding honours on thy crest 
I'll crop, to make a garland for my head. 

Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities. \They fight. 

Enter Falstaff. 

Eat. Well said, 5 Hal ! to it, Hal ! Nay, you shall find 
no boy's play here, I can tell you. 

Re-enter Douglas ; he fights with Falstaff, who falls down 
as if he ivere dead, and exit Douglas. Hotspur is 
wounded, and falls. 

5 The phrase well said was often used in the sense of well done. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 83 

Hot. O Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth ! 
I better brook the loss of brittle life 
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me ; 
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh : 
But thoughts the slaves of life, and life Time's fool, 
And Time that takes survey of all the world, 
Must have a stop. 6 O, I could prophesy, 
But that the earthy and cold hand of death 
Lies on my tongue : no, Percy, thou art dust, 
And food for — [Dies. 

Prince. For worms, brave Percy : fare thee well, great 
heart ! 
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk ! 
When that this body did contain a spirit, 
A kingdom for it was too small a bound ; 
But now two paces of the vilest earth 
Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead 
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. 
If thou wert sensible of courtesy, 
I should not make so dear a show of zeal : 
But let my favours hide thy mangled face ; 7 
And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself 
For doing these fair rites of tenderness. 
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to Heaven ! 

6 This passage has been commonly misunderstood. Probably the right 
construction is, to take thoughts, life, and time as subjects of must have. So 
that the meaning comes thus : " But thoughts, which are the slaves of life, 
and life, which is Time's fool, and even Time itself, that takes survey of all 
the world, must have an end." 

7 Favours refers to the scarf with which he covers Percy's face. Cover- 
ing the face of a dead person is an old ceremony of reverential tenderness ; 
perhaps connected some way, either as cause or effect, with the ancient be 
lief that the robins were wont to cover the faces of unburied men. 



1 84 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

Thy ignomy 8 sleep with thee in the grave, 
But not remember'd in thy epitaph ! — 

[Sees Falstaff on the ground. 
What, old acquaintance ! could not all this flesh 
Keep in a little life ? Poor Jack, farewell ! 
I could have better spared a better man : 
O, I should have a heavy miss of thee, 
If I were much in love with vanity ! 
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day, 
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. 
Embowell'd 9 will I see thee by-and-by : 
Till then in blood by noble Percy lie. \_Exit. 

Fal. \_Rising7\ Embowell'd ! if thou embowel me to-day, 
I'll give you leave to powder 10 me and eat me too to-morrow. 
'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant 
Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit ! I lie ; I 
am no counterfeit : to die, is to be a counterfeit ; for he is 
but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man : 
but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be 
no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. 
The better part of valour is discretion ; in the which better 
part I have saved my life. — Zwounds, I am afraid of this gun- 
powder Percy, though he be dead : how, if he should coun- 
terfeit too, and rise ? by my faith, I am afraid he would prove 
the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure ; yea, 
and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well 
as I ? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. 



8 Ignomy was a common contraction of ignominy. 

9 To embowel was the old term for embalming the body, as was usually 
done to persons of rank. 

10 To powder was the old word for to salt. 



SCENE IV. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 85 

Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you 
along with me. [Takes Hotspur on his back. 

Re-enter Prince Henry and Lancaster. 

Prince. Come, brother John ; full bravely hast thou flesh'd 
Thy maiden sword. 

Lan. But, soft ! whom have we here ? 

Did you not tell me this fat man was dead? 

Prince. I did ; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding 
Upon the ground. — 
Art thou alive ? or is it fantasy 
That plays upon our eyesight ? I pr'ythee, speak ; 
We will not trust our eyes without our ears : 
Thou art not what thou seem'st. 

Fal. No, that's certain ; I am not a double man : but if 
I be not Jack FalstafT, then am. I a Jack. 11 There is Percy ! 
[Throwing the body down.~\ if your father will do me any 
honour, so ; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I 
look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you. 

Prince. Why, Percy I kilPd myself, and saw thee dead. 

Fal. Didst thou? — Lord, Lord, how this world is given 
to lying ! — I grant you I was down and out of breath ; and 
so was he : but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long 
hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so ; if not, 
let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their 
own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this 
wound in the thigh : if the man were alive, and would deny 
it, zwounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. 

Lan. This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard. 

Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John. — 

11 fack was used as a term of contempt, like our jackanapes. 



1 86 THE FIRST PART OF ACT V. 

Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back : 
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, 
I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have. — 

\_A retreat sounded. 
The trumpet sounds retreat ; the day is ours. 
Come, brother, let's to th' highest of the field, 
To see what friends are living, who are dead. 

[Exeunt Prince Henry and Lancaster. 

Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards 

me, God reward him ! If I do grow great, I'll grow less ; 

for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman 

should do. [Exit, bearing off the body. 



Scene V. — Another Part of the Field. 

The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, 
Lancaster, Westmoreland, and others, with Worcester 
andYERNON Prisoners. 

Xing. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. — 
Ill-spirited Worcester ! did we not send grace, 
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you ? 
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary ? 
Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust ? 
Three knights upon our party slain to-day, 
A noble earl, and many a creature else, 
Had been alive this hour, 
If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne 
Betwixt our armies true intelligence. 

Wor. What I have done my safety urged me to ; 
And I embrace this fortune patiently, 
Since not to be avoided it falls on me. 



SCENE V. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. 1 87 

King. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too : 
Other offenders we will pause upon. — 

[Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded. 
How goes the field ? 

Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw 
The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him, 
The noble Percy slain, and all his men 
Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest ; 
And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised 
That the pursuers took him. 1 At my tent 
The Douglas is ; and I beseech your Grace 
I may dispose of him. 

King. With all my heart. 

Prince. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you 
This honourable bounty shall belong : 
Go to the Douglas, and deliver him 
Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free : 
His valour, shown upon our crests to-day, 
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds 
Even in the bosom of our adversaries. 

King. Then this remains, that we divide our power. — 
You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, 
Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed, 
To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop, 
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms : 
Myself, — and you, son Harry, — will towards Wales, 
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March. 
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, 

1 To conclude, the kings enemies were vanquished and put to flight, in 
which flight the earle of Dowglas, for hast falling from the crag of an hie 
mounteine, brake one of his cullions, and was taken, and, for his valiant' 
nesse, of the king franklie and freelie delivered. — Holinshed. 



1 88 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. ACT V 

Meeting the check of such another day : 
And since this business 2 so fair is done, 
Let us not leave till all our own be won. \_Exeunt. 

2 Business is a trisyllable here, as in various other instances. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act i., Scene i. 

P a S e 57« Of prisoners, Hotspur took 

Mordake the Earl of Fife and eldest son 

To beaten Douglas. — The article the, needful to the metre, is 
wanting in the old copies. Supplied by Pope. 

P. 57. Faith, 'tis a conquest for a prince to boast of — So Rann. In- 
stead of Faith, 'tis, at the beginning of this speech, the old copies have 
In faith it is at the conclusion of the preceding speech. 

Act i., Scene 2. 

P. 67. Farewell, thou latter Spring. — The old copies have the in- 
stead of thou. Corrected by Pope. 

P. 67. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men, 
&c. — Instead of Bardolph and Peto, the old copies have Harvey and 
Rossill, which were doubtless the names of the actors who performed 
those parts. Such substitutions of names are not uncommon in old 
editions of plays. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 68. Provide us all things necessary, and meet me to-night in 
Eastcheap. — So Capell. The old copies read " meet me to-morrow 
night" which can hardly be right, since the Prince is here directing 
Pointz to provide the things necessary for the part they are to play in 
the robbery, such as visards, cases of buckram, &c- ; and the time set 
for the robbery is " to-morrow morning, by four o'clock, early at 
Gads-hill." 

P. 68. By breaking through the foul and ugly mists 

And vapours that did seem to strangle him. — The old text has 



I9O KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 

" mists Of vapours." Such an expression, I think, was not good Eng- 
lish in Shakespeare's time; and we have repeated instances of & mis- 
printed of. Dyce prints " mists Of vapour" 

Act i., Scene 3. 

P. 69. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, 
Unapt to stir at these indignities, 

As you have found me ; for, accordingly, &c. — The old text 
reads "And you have found me." The correction is Lettsom's. 

P. 70. And that same greatness too which our own hands 
Have holp to make so portly. 

North. My good lord, — 

King. Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see 
Danger and disobedience in thine eye. — The old text lacks 
good in Northumberland's speech. The insertion has the joint sanction 
of Pope, Walker, and Collier's second folio. 

P. 71. Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed, 

Fresh as a bridegroom. — So Pope. The old copies read " neat 
and trimly dress'd." 

P. 71 . I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, 

Out of my grief and my impatience 

To be so pester 'd with a popinjay, 

Answered neglectingly, &c. — So Capell. The old text trans- 
poses the second and third lines. The correction was proposed by 
Edwards and Johnson. 

P. 71. He should, or he should not ; for't made me mad 

To see him shine so brisk, &c. — The old text reads " for he 
made me mad." 

P. 73. Shall we buy treason ? and indent tvith fears? — Hanmer and 
Collier's second folio read " indent with foes" and rightly, I suspect. 
It is indeed certain that fears was often put for things or persons feared; 
still I am apt to think that foes agrees better with the context here. 
Staunton prints feers, an old word for companion or mate. I cannot 
see what business such a word should have here. See foot-note 9. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I9I 

P. 74. Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, from henceforth 

Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer. — The old copies read 
" Art thou not asham'd," and lack from, thus totally defeating the 
rhythm of the line. Lettsom would strike out thou, and take hence- 
forth as a trisyllable. But I think the Poet nowhere else uses it so. 
On the other hand, in the first speech of this scene we have " I will 
from henceforth rather be myself." 

P. 75. Was he not proclaimed 

By Richard that is dead the next of blood? — The old text has 
" By Richard that dead is," — a very awkward inversion. Walker's 
correction. 

P. 77. And to your quick -conceiving discontent 

I'll read you matter deep and dangerous. — So Walker. The 
old text has discontents ; which would be in accordance with the usage 
of the time in addressing more than one person. But this is addressed 
to Hotspur only. 

P- 77- If viz fall in, good night, or sink or swim! — The old copies 
read "If he fall in." Theobald proposed and Hanmer printed we. 
Heath, also, strongly approves that reading, as nothing precedes to 
which the pronoun he can refer. 

P. 79. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool 

Art thou, to break into this woman's mood. — So the first quarto. 
The other old copies have waspe-tongue and waspe-tongu'd. The mean- 
ing of wasp-stung I take to be, " as fretful and snappish as if stung by 
Wasps " ; which aptly describes Hotspur's behaviour. Wasp-tongue or 
wasp-tongued would seem to mean that his speech is waspish, or as 
stinging and spiteful as a wasp ; which does not suit the occasion so 
well, though a good sense in itself. 

Act 11., Scene i. 

P. 84. There is ne'er a king in Christendom could be better bit than, 
&c. — So the folio. The quartos " ne'er a king christen could be," &c. 



192 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 

P. 86. But with nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great 
oneyers; such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than 
speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than 
pray. — For tranquillity and great oneyers Collier's second 
folio substitutes sanguinity and "great ones — yes, such as can," &c. 
By tranquillity I have always understood persons of leisure, or " at 
their ease," as Capell explains it ; and I do not see how sanguinity 
gives any clearei or better sense. " Great oneyers," I take it, are sim- 
ply what are sometimes called " big bugs " ; — "a cant variation of 
great ones," says Johnson. Perhaps I ought to add that Theobald 
substituted " great moneyers " / Hanmer, " great owners " / and Capell, 
" great mynheers." 

Act il, Scene 2. 

P. 90. Pointz. 0, 'tis our setter : I know his voice. 

Bard. What news ? 

Gads. Case ye, case ye ; on with your visards, &c. — The old 
copies run the first two of these speeches together into one, thus : " O 
'tis our Setter, I know his voyce: Bardolfe, what newes? " Here the 
prefix Bardolfe evidently got printed as a part of the speech. And in 
the third speech, instead of the prefix Gads., the old copies have Bar. 
The present arrangement and distribution of the speeches are John- 
son's. 

P. 93. Away, good Ned. Fat Falstaff sweats to death, 

And lards the lean earth as he walks along. — So Capell. The 
old text lacks Fat, which is needed both for the metre and for the 
antithesis with lean. In case of two or more successive words begin- 
ning with the same letters, one of them is.very apt to drop out. 

Act il, Scene 3. 

P. 95. Of prisoners ransom'd, and of soldiers slain. — The old copies 
have " prisoners ransome." Capell proposed the correction ; and 
Walker points out many clear instances of final d and final e con- 
founded. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I93 

P. 95. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, 

And thou hast so bestirred thee in thy sleep, &c. — Instead of 
thou hast, the old copies have thus hath. The correction was proposed 
by Capell ; and Walker says, " Read ' And thou hast,' &c." He 
seems not to have been aware of Capell's conjecture. 

P. 96. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me 

Directly to this question that I ask. — The old copies read 
" Directly unto this question." Hardly worth noting, perhaps. 

Act 11., Scene 4. 

P. 98. Ned, pr'ythee, come out of that fat room, &c. — None of the 
commentators, so far as I know, have satisfactorily explained "fat 
room." I have hardly any doubt we ought to read " hot room." So, 
in the last scene of Hamlet, we have " He's fat, and scant of breath "; 
where I am quite satisfied that hot is the right word. See foot-note 2. 

P. 103. He that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a break- 
fast, washes his hands, &c. — Here " at a breakfast " apparently means 
" before breakfast." Dyce says, "An anonymous critic proposes after " 
I suspect the anonymous proposer is right; as " after breakfast " would 
accord better with the words, " how many hast thou kill'd to-day ? " 

P. 103. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter ? pitiful- 
hearted butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the Sun. — The old copies 
repeat Titan instead of butter ; a palpable error, which, however, 
Staunton retains. Theobald made the correction. 

P. 107. Thou nott-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow- 
keech. — The old copies have " knotty-pated '' and " tallow catch. 7 ' 
The first was corrected by Douce, and the correction is justified by a 
previous speech in this scene : " Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, 
crystal button, nott-pated, agate-ring," &c. As to catch, this was prob- 
ably but another spelling of keech. See foot-note 28. 

P. 108. Away, you starveling, you eel-skin. — So Hanmer, The old 
text has " el fe- skin" T 



194 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 

P. 108. We two saw you four set on four ; you bound them t &c. — 
The old copies read " and bound them." Corrected by Pope. 

P. 114. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen. — The old 
editions have "trustful Queene"; an error which the context easily 
rectifies. 

P. 117. Banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy 
Harry's company. — I suspect, with Dyce, that Pope was right in re- 
jecting the last six words " as an accidental repetition." To my think- 
ing, the sense is much better every way, without them. 

P. 118. Thou art essentially mad, without seeming so. — All the old 
copies till the third folio have made instead of mad. 

R 119. Now, my masters, for a true face and a. good conscience. — 
The last a is wanting in the old copies. Supplied in Collier's second 
folio. 

P. 1 20. Pointz. Falstaff! — fast asleep behind the arras, &c. — Here, 
and in the dialogue that follows about Falstaff, the old copies have 
Peto instead of Pointz. This is clearly wrong, as Pointz is in the 
Prince's confidence, and Peto is not. And the fact of Pointz having 
acted with the Prince in the robbery business is conclusive that his 
name is the right one here. We have the same mistake again near 
the close of the third Act : " Go, Pointz, to horse, to horse." The 
correction was made by Johnson, who justly remarks, " What had Peto 
done, to be trusted with the plot against Falstaff? Pointz has the 
Prince's confidence, and is a man of courage." 

Act hi., Scene i. 

P. 121. Lord Mortimer, — and cousin Glendower, — will you sii 
down ? — and uncle Worcester, — a plague upon it ! I have 
forgot the map. — This and the three following speeches of 
Hotspur I have no scruple in printing as prose. In the folio, two 
of them, the first and the fourth, are indeed printed as verse ; and 
some modern editions give them all in that shape ; but, even after 
using hardly warrantable liberties with the text, they make them verse 



CRITICAL NOTES. 195 

only to the eye. For example, Dyce, in the second speech, changes 
oft to often, and, in the third, " had but kitten'd " to " had kitten'd," 
and never to ne'er ; — a pretty bold proceeding at the best, while the 
result is far from satisfying on the score of metrical harmony. 

P. 122. The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, 

Of burning cressets ; ay, and at my birth 

The frame and huge foundation of the Earth, &c. — So Capell. 
The old copies are without ay in the second line. Glendower, through- 
out this scene, is careful of his rhythm and numbers ; and I can hardly 
think the Poet meant to spot him with so gross a breach in that kind. 

P. 123. The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds 

Were strangely clamorous in the frighted fields. — So Pope. 
The old text has " clamorous to the frighted fields." I do not under- 
stand the meaning of to here. 

P. 123. How'scdcptdihe agues, in the Devil's name? — The old copies 
have scapes instead of 'scaped. Corrected in Collier's second folio. I 
am not quite sure that the correction ought to pass. 

P. 124. And in my conduct shall your ladies come ; 

From whom you now must steal, and take no leave, 
Or there will be a world of water shed 

Upon the parting of your wives and you. — So Walker, and, I 
think, with evident propriety. The old text has For instead of Or. 
Walker produces several clear instances of the same misprint ; as in 
Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7 : " These quicksands, Lepidus, keep off 
them, for you sink." 

P. 125. And then he runneth straight and evenly. — The old copies 
have "And then he runnes straight and even." Capell printed "runs 
straightly and evenly" and is followed by Dyce. Collier's second folio 
reads " runs all straight and evenly." 

P. 126. I do not care : P 11 give thrice so much land 

To any well-deserving friend. — An octo-syllabic line seems 
quite out of place here. Hanmer, to cure the defect, printed " As that 
to any well-deserving friend " ; which, to my sense, is a worse defect 



ig6 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 

than the old one of metre. Walker suggests "To any worthy, well- 
deserving friend " ; but queries, as he well may, whether this would 
not be a tautology. Still it is much better than Hanmer's. If I were 
to venture any supplementing of the verse, it would be noble or honest. 

P. 1260 The Moon shines fair ; you may away to-night: 

I'll in and haste the writer, and withal 

Break with your wives, &c. — The words Pll in, which are 
needful both for sense and metre, are wanting in the old copies, and 
were proposed by Steevens. 

P. 127. He held me last night at the least nine hours 
In reckoning up the several devils' names 
That were his lacqueys : I cried hum, and well, 
But marked him not a word. — In the first of these lines the 
old text is without the, and to the third it adds go to, which Pope struck 
out. Ritson comments upon the addition thus : " These two senseless 
monosyllables seem to have been added by some foolish player, pur- 
posely to destroy the metre." 

P. 1 27. 0, he's as tedious 

As is a tirld horse, a railing wife. — So Capell. The old copies 
lack is in the second line ; an omission not to be endured. 

P. 128. In faith, my lord, you are too wz'^W-blunt. — The old text 
has " too wilfull blame? Walker says, " Of course, * too wi\M-blunt ' ; 
and so Johnson suggests." Dyce, however, retains blame, and refers 
to Nares, who shows that the phrase to blame is a corruption of too 
blame, which formerly meant too blamable or blameworthy. But it 
seems to me that the phrase, even so explained, does not yield a fitting 
sense here. 

P. 128. Good father, tell her she and my aunt Percy 

Shall follow in my conduct speedily. — The old text mars the 
rhythm by thrusting in the useless word that between her and she. 
Corrected by Pope. 

P. 129. One no persuasion can do good upon. — Here, again, the 
metre is spoilt in the old copies by inserting that after One. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I97 

P. 129. I understand thy looks : that pretty Welsh 

Which thou pour 'st down from those two swelling heavens 
I am too perfect in. — So Pope and Lettsom. The old copies 
read " these swelling heavens." The omission of two untunes the verse 
utterly. Pope's reading gives just the sense required, meaning, of 
course, the lady's sky-blue eyes, which seem to grow larger when 
brightened with tears. 

P. 129. Nay, if you melt, then she will run quite mad. — Here quite 
is wanting in the old text. Dyce says, " This addition occurred to me 
before I knew that Capell had inserted it." 

P. 130. An those musicians that shall play to you 

Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, 
Yet straight they shall be here. — Instead of An and Yet, at the 
beginning of the first and third lines, the old copies have And in both 
places. But an, the old equivalent of if, was very often printed and; 
and here the word probably got repeated from the first line in the 
place of Yet. The latter word was substituted by Rowe. 

P. 13I0 Heart, you swear like a comfit-maker 's wife ! Not mine, in 
good sooth ; and, As true as I live ; &c. — The old copies have you 
instead of mine; the former having probably crept in by mistake from 
the line before. Collier's second folio changes you into yours, and 
Lettsom would substitute /. But, as Hotspur is repeating his wife's 
oathlets, it appears to me that mine is the right word. 

P. 132. Come, come, Lord Mortimer ; you are as slow 
As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go. 
By this our book's drawn ; we'll but seal, and then 
To horse immediately. 

Mort. With all my heart. — The Poet often 

closes a scene with one or more rhyming couplets. So I strongly sus 
pect we ought to read here with Collier's second folio : 

By this our book is drawn: we'll seal, zndpavt 
To horse immediately. 
Aiort. With all my heart 



I98 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 



Act hi., Scene 2. 

P. 133. Such poor, such base, such lewd, such mean attempts. — The 
old copies have bare instead of base. The two words were often con- 
founded. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 133. As, in reproof of many tales devised 

By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers, — 
Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear. — The old text 
has the second and third of these lines transposed. The correction 
was proposed by Keightley. 

P. 135. Carded his state, 

Mingled his royalty with capering fools. — So the first quarto. 
The other old copies have carping instead of capering. For " carded 
his state " Collier's second folio substitutes " discarded state," and is 
followed by White ; very unadvisedly, I think. Carded, taken as the 
word was often used, gives a very fitting sense, namely, " mixed, and 
debased by mixing." So in Bishop Andrewes' Sermons, quoted by 
Mr. Arrowsmith : " And these — for that by themselves they will not 
utter — to mingle and to card with the Apostles' doctrine." See foot- 
note 13. 

P. 138. 7%' Archbishofs Grace of York, Douglas, and Mortimer 
Capitulate against us, and are up. — The old text omits and in 
the first of these lines. Inserted by Rowe. 

P. 138. When I will wear a garment all of blood, 

And stain my favour in a bloody mask. — So Hanmer and 
Warburton. The old text has favours. The context shows that the 
Prince means his own face or countenance, and the plural can hardly 
give that sense. 

P. 139. This, in the name of God, I promise here : 

The which if I perform, and do survive. — So the folio. The 
quartos read " The which if he be pleas' d I shall performc'* 



CRITICAL NOTES. I99 

P. 139. How now, good Blunt ! thy looks are full of speed. 

Blunt. So is the business that I come to speak of — The old 
copies read " So hath the business." A very palpable error. 

P. 140. On Wednesday next you, Harry, shall set forward ; 

On Thursday we ourselves will march. — The old text reads 
" On Wednesday next, Harry ; you shall set forward." 

Act hi., Scene 3. 

P. 148. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, 

My brother John ; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. — 

Go, Pointz, to horse, to horse ; for thou and L 

Have thirty miles to ride ere dinner-time. — 

Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i' the Temple-hall 

At two o'clock in th' afternoon. — In the second of these lines, 
the old copies have "To my brother John "; in the third, " Go, Peto, 
to horse "; in the fourth, " to ride yet ere dinner-time"; and in the 
fifth, " Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple-hall." Yet they print 
the whole speech as verse. Some modern editors print the whole as 
prose ; and I have been rather slow in coming to the conclusion that 
they are wrong in doing so. In truth, without the several changes I 
have noted, the speech is neither fairly verse nor fairly prose, but an 
awkward and hobbling mixture of the two. Withal, it is quite certain 
that Peto should be Pointz. See the last of these notes on the second 
Act, page 194. 

Act iv., Scene i. 

P. 150. His letters bear his mind, not L, my lord. — The first two 
quartos have "not I my mind''' 1 ; the other old copies, "not I his 
mind." Corrected by Capell. 

P. 150. He writes me here, that inward sickness — 
And that his friends by deputation could not 
So soon be drawn. — The first of these lines is manifestly incom- 
plete both in sense and in metre ; and I suspect it was purposely left 
so, as a casual note of Hotspur's impatience and perturbation of mind. 
Capell, however, printed " that inward sickness holds him." If I were 
to make any change, it would be "that inward sickness, — and— 
And," &c. 



200 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 

P. 151. Where now remains a sweet reversion; 
And we may boldly spend upon the hope 

Of what is to come in. — So Capell. The old copies are with- 
out And in the second line. "That this speech is mutilated, there can 
be little doubt," says Dyce. 

P. 152. That shows the ignorant a kind of fear 
Before not dreamt of 

Hot. Nay, you strain too far. — The old text 

is without Nay ; and possibly the verse was not meant to be complete. 
Capell reads "Come, you strain too far." 

P. 153. There is not such a word 

Spoken in Scotland as this term of fear. — Instead of Spoken, 
the old text has Spoke of. The correction is Lettsom's. I question 
whether it was ever English to use spoke ofzs an equivalent for spoken. 

P. 153. The King himself in person is set forth, 

Or hitherwards intendeth speedily. — So Collier's second folio. 
The old text has intended. An easy misprint. 

P. 153. And his comrddes, that daff the world aside, 

And bid it pass. — So Dyce ; and notes upon the text as fol- 
lows : " Here daft of the old editions is a present tense, merely a cor- 
rupt spelling of doff. — Formerly, to words ending with f it was not 
unusual to add a t." 

P. 153. All plumed like estridges that with the wind 

Bate it ; like eagles having lately bathed. — So the old copies, 
except that they have Bated instead of Bate it, and lack the ( ; ) after 
Bated. The change was lately proposed by Professor Hiram Corson, 
of Cornell University, and is fully justified from the conditions of the 
passage, and by ancient usage. — Rowe printed " like estridges that 
wing the wind ; Bated like eagles ; " &c. ; and is followed by several 
editors, Staunton, White, and Dyce among them ; in deference to whom 
I once gave up the old reading : but I now return to it in full confi- 
dence under the better advice of Mr. A. E. Brae, who justly notes it 
as " perfectly legitimate " to take bated with as equivalent to struggled 



CRITICAL NOTES. 201 

against. The only difficulty I can see in the text arises from the cir- 
cumstance of the verb being in the past tense, where it should prop- 
erly be in the present, bate. But this, I think, is fairly obviated by 
reading bate it. See foot-note 18. 

P. 154. / saw young Harry — with his beaver on — 

Rise from the ground like feather 'd Mercury, 

And vault it with such ease into his seat, &c. — The old text has 
vaulted ; an instance something like that remarked in the preceding 
note ; where vault would obviously be more proper. For the sake of 
grammatical accuracy, Capell printed " And vault with such an ease." 
The reading in the text was suggested by Malone, but occurred to me 
independently. 

P. 155. Harry and Harry shall, hot horse to horse, 

Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse. — The old 
copies read " Harry to Harry shall." To speak of one person as meet- 
ing to another, is not English, and, I think, never was. The correction 
is Lettsom's. 

Act iv., Scene 2. 

P. 156. We'' II to Sutton-Co'hl' to-night. — So the Cambridge Editors 
and Dyce, who are doubtless well-booked in the particulars of English 
geography and nomenclature. The old text has " Sutton-cophill. " See 
foot-note 1. 

P. 157. / press'd me none but good householders, yeomen's sons, in- 
quired me out, &c. — Instead of press'd and inquired, the old text has 
presse and inquire. But the context leaves no doubt that those verbs 
should be in the past tense. 

P. 157. Slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the 
glutton's dogs lick his sores. — The old copies have licked. 

P. 158. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company ; and the 
half-shirt is two napkins, &c. — The old copies read "There's not a 
shirt and a half." But and not were often misprinted for each other : 
still I am not sure but the change meddles too much with Falstaff s 
idiom. 



202 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 



Act iv., Scene 3. 

P. 160. You speak it out of fear and cold heart. — We have here an 
unpleasant breach of prosody, or what seems such. White, however, 
takes fear as a dissyllable. Pope printed " out of fear, and from cold 
heart." Collier's second folio has " fear and a cold heart." I think 
it would not be un-Shakespearian to read " fear and cold of heart." 

P. 160. I hold as little counsel with weak fear 

As you, my lord, or any Scot that lives. — So Pope. The old 
text reads " any Scot that this day lives." It is hardly credible that 
the Poet would have thus damaged his verse and weakened his sense 
at the same time. 

P. 160. That not a horse is half the half himself — So Steevens. 
The old copies have "half the half of himself"; which Pope changed 
to " half half of himself." 

P. 162. To sue his livery and beg his peace. 

With tears of innocence and terms of zeal. — The old text has 
innocency. The two forms were often confounded. 

P. 164. And withal to pry 

Into his title, the which now we find 

Too indirect for long continuance. — So Dyce. The old copies 
are without now in the second of these lines. Of course the word has 
been inserted, to repair the metre ; yet it can hardly be said to make 
the line rhythmical. 

Act v., Scene i. 

P. 167. You have not sought it ! why, how comes it, then ? — The old 
text is without why. The gap thus left in the verse has sometimes 
been filled up with well. I think why accords better with the tone of 
the speech. 

P. 168. And, being fed by us, you used us so 
As that ungentle gull, tke cuckoo-foV</, 

Useth the sparrow.— So Walker. The old text has "Cuckowes 
Bird." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 203 

P. 171. So tell your cousin, and'CatXi bring me word 

What he will do. — So Capell. The old copies lack then. 

P. 171. What is honour? a word. What is that word honour? 
air. — So the folio. The first three quartos read " What is in that 
word, honour ? What is that honour ? Air." 

Act v., Scene 2. 

P. 172. Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes. — The old 
copies have Supposition. Corrected by Rowe. As Alexandrines are 
rare in this play, much effort has been made, to get rid of two syllables 
here. 

P. 1 73. All his offences lie upon my head 

And on his father's. — The old text has live instead of lie. The 
two words were often confounded, as Walker abundantly shows. 

P. 1 73. Marry, I shall, and very willingly. — So Pope. The old 
copies read " Marry and shall." 

P. 173. Which he mended thus, 

By new '-for swearing that he is forsworn. — The old text has 
" By now forswearing." Corrected by Walker ; who produces many 
like instances of new and now confounded. 

P. 175. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured 
Upon his follies : never did I hear 

Of any prince so wild a* liberty. — In the second line, the old 
copies have On instead of Upon. In the third line, the quartos have 
" wilde a liberty," the folio, " wilde at liberty." We find almost num- 
berless instances of a printed for o\ " Wild of liberty " means " wild 
in respect of liberty," — a frequent usage. Dyce, following Capell, 
prints " so wild a libertine," which seems to me rather strange. 

Act v., Scene 3. 

P. 176. What is thy name, that in the battle thus 

Thou crossest me ? — So Hamner. The old copies omit the. 



204 KING HENRY IV. PART FIRST. 

P. 177. A fool go with thy soul where're it goes. — So Capell. The 
old copies have " whither it goes." Both sense and metre favour the 
change. 

P. 177. The King hath many masking in his coats. — The old text 
has marching instead of masking, which is from Collier's second folio; 
a very happy correction. 

P. 1 78. There'' s but three of my hundred and fifty left alive. — Here, 
again, the old copies have not instead of but. See note on " There's 
but a shirt and a half," &c, page 201. 

P. 178. Whose deaths as yet are unrevenged : I pr'yihee 

Lend me thy sword. — Instead of as yet are, the old copies have 
are yet, and are. Corrected by Dyce. 

Act v., Scene 4. 

P. 1 79. / do beseech your Majesty, make up. — So Pope and Collier's 
second folio. The old copies omit do. 

P. 181. The spirits 

Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arm. — The old 
text has " are in my armes." Pope reduced the line from an Alexan- 
drine to a regular verse by omitting valiant. 

P. 183. They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh : 
But thoughts the slaves of life, and life Time's fool, 
And Time that takes survey of all the world, 
Must have a stop. — So the first quarto. The other old copies 
have " But thought's the slave of Life." Lettsom notes upon the pas- 
sage thus : " The readings of the second quarto are sophistications by 
one who did not see that thoughts as well as time were nominative 
cases before must have, and consequently supposed that the syntax was 
defective for want of a verb." — I suspect we ought to read thought and 
slave instead of thoughts and slaves. — See foot-note 6. 

P. 185. I did ; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding 

Upon the ground. — Here, again, the old text has On instead 
of upon t which is Capell' s reading. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 205 



Act v., Scene 5. 

P. 186. Since not to be avoided it falls on me. — I suspect we ought 
to read, with Collier's second folio, " Which not to be avoided falls on 
me." 

P. 187. Even in the bosom of our adversaries. — After this line, the 
first four quartos put the following speech into the mouth of Lancaster : 

I thank your Grace for this high courtesy, 
Which I shall give away immediately. 

This comes pretty near being absurd ; for it makes the Prince say he 
will give away the courtesy. 



JUL 24 1908 



